This is all a balance between keeping the regatta requirement for protest committee / judging low enough that regattas can actually happen (something you seem to be in favor of), while being able to contribute positively to most legal/liability situations that arise.

Mark, if you fix the judging / protest committee side of things to make it completely water tight on legal/liable issues, nobody will ever be able to put a committee together to meet those requirements and nobody will have a regatta. It's all a balance between was practical and practicable and the percentage of situations for which the system fails. Tilt one way, you lose the other. I think the system as a whole balances pretty well.