Yes, the filter my Whizzer came with had a paper/foam filter element in it and it clogged up my carb.I will sharpie the month and year I put a filter on most of my small engines. The filter element itself can sometimes degrade with age/time and become the problem. 2 years is a good time frame for replacement regardless of miles ridden just because, as you mentioned, the plastic starts to degrade.
Yeah I probably didn't change it soon enough but that's when I switched to clear Pancake filters with just a fine metal screen
I also made a maintenance schedule and wrote everything down in a log because
I soon discovered a M/B is 10x more maintenance than a M/C