Fritz, I have to differ with what you claim.
Snuffers and a furled sail offer about the same windage for upwind sailing (the Hooter exposes only a rope-like windage, while the snuffer exposes a big bag and a toilet seat) ..,
and the Hooter can sail upwind in light air, while the spinnaker cannot. The Hooter offers another dimension to sailing. If the wind is light enough to hold the boat down, you simply unfurl and sheet it. You go much faster and often higher than sailing bare in front.
A spinnaker in the same situation would just go sideways.
Off the wind, the Hooter on a light-weight boat has proven to be as fast and often faster than a full spinnaker. Note the newer designs of spinnakers are getting away from the fullness and big shoulders. That is because they have learned that all that stuff was useful for monohulls that sailed deep, but not so good for high speed, high tech cats.

One more problem with the snuffers is there is a lot friction bringing the sail in and taking it out. That requires gallons of McLube, which is very expensive. And it wears the sail out in a short time.
In snuffing a sail you need to do it while beginning your turn upwind and the last portion while you are going upwind. How is a single-hander going to do that? Not very easy, I am afraid.

On the other hand, I have been able to go into the leeward mark's 2-length zone with full power, furl the Hooter just before the jibe(using a 1:2 furler line [note: not a 2:1.., this means you can furl much faster]) and make a great slam dunk mark rounding.

Can't do that by yourself with snuffer. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Cheers,
Rick