Agree with mmiller : Everyone should just keep their heads a little, and understand their motives, even if you don`t agree with them.
If this is a world-wide drive to attract more people to Hobie sailing, I sincerely hope it works but have my doubts.
In Cape Town, South Africa we have events run by clubs which are open to all classes, and events run by Hobie, which are also open to all classes. Classes are scored separately,there are class winners and there is a handicap winner (not always a Hobie), and it all seems to work fine. As a non-Hobie sailor, we don`t try to convince Hobie sailors to switch boats to our brand, and none of them have.(Ok, we do point out the difference in speed downwind with our chutes up, but that`s friendly rivalry.) If this changes in the future it will just reduce the number of competitors at the Hobie class events, to the point where these events will just vanish as they will no longer be financially viable, unless IHCA provides the local Hobie class with funds so that they don`t mind running regattas at a loss.
The way things are right now, attendance is on the increase at these events (thanks mostly to the open division), and this in turn is attracting a lot of Hobie sailors back to events that they may have missed for a while. Large fleets have the ability to become infectious and start to grow exponentially, while 5 boat fleets stay that way, if they`re lucky.
In the other Provinces in SA we find the Dart 18 being strong, with the Hobie class facing extinction. An interesting point is that the Dart 18 class did exactly what IHCA are trying to do - they started their own league which is open to only Dart sailors, and are being very successful. There is no hard rule as to what will or won`t work, and what works in one area might fail in another.
I hope The Hobie class representatives are reading this thread, perhaps they`ll reconsider and search for better ways to grow their support base.
IHCA needs to understand that their ideals cannot be enforced in areas where support for their product is not already strong.

Cheers
Steve
F16 Mosquito