Steve,
What I find really interesting is the "cultural" difference between sailing cultures on the various continent..

(My opinion)..
We in Au have been unfortunately been invaded by the heavy plastic under powered under achieving "international" classes..

My father learnt to sail as bailer boy on 6, 8, 10 and 32 foot skiffs.. If you can have a look at the sail areas they used to put up..Then graduated to skippering a home built 6 footer.. (at 13).. My first was a VJ.. 11'6 (just under 3.5 meters) sharpie planing hull.. Sort-of like a pointed bowed hard chined scow, 3'6 wide at the gunwales, and to keep her upright twin planks (the class was designed before trapezes were invented).. 45kg weight limit.. 120? sq feet working sail area with a assymetric kite.. chine to gunwale height 200 mm.. The races started at 1:30 pm.. My local pond has a summer breeze of 22 knots average so many days we started in conditions where foam was blowing off the chop.. On those days I just wore 6 wool jumpers rather than the normal 3.. I was 13 weighed 5 1/2 stone (35kg) I still remember the day we put the kite up and sailed over the Australian 14 skiff champ on a shy reach.. To be honest it was in the days before a wind upper restriction applied.. The hull was out from just behind the centreplate and only 1/3 of the width of the hull.. Scary yes but exhilerating.. I was hooked!!!
A few years ago I unfortunately took my son down to his first sailing experience.. So he went out on an opti... and came back bored.. Now getting him near a boat is difficult as he considers sailing is boring.. When my arm is ok I hope to take him out on the F16 and show him it can make his young heart skip (he is 10).. The first impression is important and takes a lot of good experiences to overcome the first..

My point after the ramble.. Wish I had taken my son out on an higher preformanced boat like an ARC17 (not that I have seen one) rather than let him see an opti..