Perhaps not, but it has been shown that the foilers are just as fast as the floaters in floating A-cat mode. This isn't internet speculation, I was there when Bailey White rounded the top mark at 2015 A-cat midwinters in pole position with a JZ board Exploder in total float mode, maybe blowing 5kts, maybe-I rounded a few boats back on a C-board EVO II. I don't think flying foil setups make sense in those conditions (i.e not worth the complexity or cost etc.), so for lake sailing I totally get having a straight board or a C-board boat, but the beauty of the new A's is the trunks will take that. If you retool a F18 or F16, it makes little sense to build them with a fixed straight board trunk, rather the universal trunk makes a lot of sense.

As for the class not changing, I'm in the middle on this, the boat is great as is, but so was the N20, and guess what, no one is racing those in a competitive fleet outside of San Diego and West River. They did nothing and the fleet died. I don't want to see that happen to the F18.