Not sure I follow your drift John, you dont agree there is redundancy then you do.

It actually quite good for the class, top end laser sailors are changing boats 6-12 months because they go soft and the sails stretch. 160,000+ boats now the formula must be good!

The same principal has worked wonders for the f18 class, my own Capricorn for example was less than half the new price and still quite competitive. no complaints about built in redundancy here.

p.s. I was sailing a-class about 26 years ago... yeah have seen many changes, but i would suggest that if it were only slight increase then the best sailors would have saved their pennies and stuck to their existing platforms.