No way. The tight rules do exactly the opposite of what you are saying- they promote manufacturing by ensuring there is a market. Look at whats happened the last two years with Hobie/Performance Cats. Performance cats puts out the infusion, hobie puts out the wild cat, performance cats puts out the mk2. Each of these in an improvement from the earlier version, although I do concede because of the rules you aren't getting any breakthrough boats. But this ensures there are plenty of boats out there and that makes for big fleets.

Also your pricing is off. Last I checked a new carbon 20 was well over 30k. If you talk about making special mods to these boats you are going to be pushing 40-45k. These are not A-cats where you got one sail and a simple rig. There are many more options and three sails and if you open it up to unbridled development you are going to have boats getting dated faster than people can sail them.

And again, I'll say, people don't want to pay large sums of money just to be competitive. I should be able to buy a used boat for under 10k and, maybe with the purchase of some new sails, expect to be able to compete with joe millionaire who just bought a brand new I20. Otherwise, I'm not buying the boat! This is why at my club which has over 100 cats you barely see any A-cats.

Also - what ever happened to sailing being about skill and practice? What we all need to do is get out on the water more and hone the skills. Instead of setting it up so everyone is worried about having the latest gear, why don't we set it up so that some high school kid who sailed all summer can give some of the old dogs a run for their money? In the words of Rick White - before you worry about getting the latest fancy coating for your hulls, fix the loose screw on the tiller!

I would propose that for now we put these issues aside. The first and foremost most important thing is to set up a circuit, see how attendance is, and then we can deal with this. Early on we could score with pns and that would be fine. As the circuit grows and gets more competitive we can vote or figure out some other way to decide what the rules are going to be. I think if everyone sees the 20 class is growing and on the up and up people (myself included) would be more willing to meet each other halfway on the details. But the most important thing is to take action before everyone jumps ship to the F18s. There are plenty of I20s at my club and a number of them in new england and up the east coast. We could generate a good racing season.