Agree, not much need for change.

The minimum would now be 6 lenghts so the zones don't overlap. Any jury would want to kill you if you overlapped the zones, and wouldn't be much happier if they were "kissing".

As Matt said, in reality the target has always been a bit more than that anyway.

Here is why I don't think it needs to be any wider than around 8-10 lengths. Experience tells me that if the gate is too wide, it becomes useless, because everyone will go around the mark that is perceived to be favored. The perception can be due to an intentional RC effort to split the fleet, a wind shift, a drifting mark, a favored side of the course, or boats that want to limit their number of tacks after the mark, or gybes before it (more common with monos, especially youth).

Of course, every "rule" has an exception, as Matt said, sometimes the herd just isn't thinned enough to squeeze through a 10-length gate when it's blowing 30 kts...

Hope this helps.

Mike