Jake,
You probably weren't involved in sailing back in the middle '80's when the Worrell had the development class. It's not a matter of the whole race being about development boats. There were only a few development boats and all the rest were regular boats. But those few added tremendous interest to the race and fueled those "what-ifs" and "wonder-why-nots" that wander around in our minds.

Back in the last half of the '50's, and maybe into the early '60's, NAMSA (or what soon became NAMSA) used to hold an event every year in New England, and people brought their one-off catamaran designs to show them off and try them out and test them against each other. That kind of thing did not happen again for 25 years until the development class was included in the Worrell for a few years. And now it has been another 15 years without a venue that encourages this kind of creativity.

It amazes me that all you engineer types out there are opposed to this while I, who have a reputation for fighting against change and technology, am in favor of the idea.

Maybe it is because, to me it seems like the same thing is happening to boats as happened to cars. They are all starting to look alike, and they all seem to have the same limitations.