Since this thread has taken a sharp left turn from the original post, I`ll help it along a bit .
I think what`s totally screwed cat-sailing worldwide is the One-design "we must all sail the same design boats" mindset. It makes us totally fragmented and gets people to stop racing rather than encourage it, since it`s apparent that we all prefer different designs based on our own peculiar personalities which makes us buy more than just one brand of car.
If a guy pitches up at a regatta with a Nacra 5.0 he must race in an open class of 4 or 5 dissimilar boats, even though there may be a fleet of ***16`s who have their own start, despite his rating being so similar to theirs that he could compete on a first-in-wins basis with them, but he`s not allowed to start with them, so his motivation to race is removed. (ISAF lists N5.0 with a 14sqm spinnaker at 1.14, ***16 is 1.16) That`s just over 1min/hour of racing, who are we kidding ?
If paragliding worked out this way it would have died out long ago. There are divisions based on performance categories, and you fly any glider in a particular division, no handicaps. If they split out into makes & classes, there would be 37 categories with 3 pilots in each.

Now the flip side is if the ***16`s allowed him to start with them he would probably end up selling his boat and joining them eventually, his boat would go to a new sailor & he`d grow the *****16 fleet, and so the cycle could repeat itself. The way it is now, he gets tired of competing in a small open class and goes off to another sport, with a resentment toward those who excluded him.
I looked up the ISAF ratings of most of the boats you guys seem to sail, and sometimes I think you`re splitting hairs. They might not be totally accurate in some respects but at least you can see which boats, on paper at least, should be similar in performance. Inter 20 rates at 0.95, Nacra 6.0 is on 0.98, Nacra 6.0 SE is on 0.95 (same as I-20), Tornado is on 0.94. Your USPN ratings will probably say much the same, that there is at best 3 minutes difference between these boats in a race of 98 minutes. That`s 1 minute 49 sec per hour of racing difference. I`m willing to bet that if all the I-20 & N6.0 sailors at a regatta were to swop boats, the top 5 positions would still be occupied by the same names. the top few sailors probably beat their mid-fleeters by a greater margin even when sailing identical boats.
The reason we can`t seem to get cat-sailing back on the map is the more "one-design" classes we create, the more we divide ourselves up into smaller fleets.

Maybe Formula type racing should be more open in nature, and include older boats that can be modified to be included. This is happening with F16, but the F18 class rules seem a little too hung up on issues that exclude older designs from being included in their setup, which is a pity. Imagine all the Hobie & Prindle 18 sailors could do a few mods to their boats and be allowed to sail F18. So what if they were not as fast as full F18`s, perhaps they could become a "b" fleet within F18, or be given a rating close to full F18. Would that not get more guys on the water than having to sell their TheMightyHobie18 in a market with no resale value to buy a "new" F18 ? At the worst it would give them the right to compete, even if it`s against slightly faster boats. It would pose no threat to the "real" F18 boats, since they would be a bit slower (So if you get beaten by an old TheMightyHobie18 with kite on your brand new Hobie Tiger, you know you need to practice .)

Just a few thoughts.
Steve