Haha, ok. To each his own.

Costly and dangerous sounds like every other interesting thing one can do with ones life nowadays. I for one cannot afford a OD boat that can do what I want. But I can build one. Driving a car is dangerous too. It is lack of experience that is dangerous. Hence the reason for waivers and self managed races. I think open class by definition drives up participation. If you don't want home built boats in the race that's cool too. I just think it would be a cooler race that more people would enter. Run what you brung doesn't mean that OD cant enter or have a "class" its just ALL inclusive. A race like this will be as much about the boat as the sailors. Breaking down in a million dollar carbon eggshell is not fast and neither is staying awake for 11 days straight. Those watertribe races have a 50% finish rate for a reason and it's not because half of the boats break down.
-Alan