I had a recent experience that may offer insight to one of the problems.
I have been helping with the juniors by assisting with boat rigging and launching. Recently, I have wanted to work on my own sailing and after the juniors had launched I would rig my cat. I try and take one of the advanced juniors for a sail on my cat each week and if the wind is OK I will teach them to trapeze. This has worked well and they really enjoy cat sailing.
Back on land I was chatting to one of the dads who said that his kid loved sailing the cat but would not buy one as he knew nothing about them. i.e. the dad had sailed a mono when he was a child and was happy to buy a mono. Thankfully, I expect to see this father / son combination a few more times this summer and will spend more of my time making the dad more comfortable with cats because I know the son is already hooked.