Steve, have some pity with us who worship catamaran racing in catamaran 'terra incognito'. (dont take the following to seriously, we are having fun and that's our main goal)

If we dont race our T on handicap, we can either race one-design "Snipe" in a three boat fleet, Laser with the nearest fleet 560km away or 12.5kvm monos 80km away + 35minutes ferry (http://www.125kvm.no/)
Sailors in this country are generally so traditional, that they mistake our T for a "Hobby cat", as they call it (Hobie 16).. There is not even a F-18 fleet forming up here!

I agree fully with you, first over the line is most fun and better for your sailing skills. But we have a saying here in Norway, "When the devil is hungry, he even eat flies".
I prefer being on any starting line vs. no starting line when those are the alternatives.

I think a sailor who mostly sail on yardstick will have the same cutthroat instincts as a one-design sailor, and a wider tactical experience with slower/faster boats (witch translates into slower/faster crews). But the yardstick crews might lack some top-end speed and pointing vs the one-design crews.
At least, those are the experiences we have made when going to other T fleets to get our.. "behinds" kicked (and boy, did we have them kicked the first time we went to Germany with no other experience than handicap racing and 3 year old sails).
If you dont have other similar (like formula) boats around to tune and develop technique with, it takes much longer time and demands more effort to become fast than if you can race in a one-design/formula fleet.



Just my opinion..