I have never seen or heard of any failures at the attachment points, and that includes the two Waves that we personally have owned and abused liberally for the past 7-8 years.

It was designed as a safe, low-maintenance rental boat, and it seems that many of its primary markets are resorts in the high-wind areas of the Caribbean.

As far as whether other catamarans could handle more wind if they reduced sail area, of course they could. A Laser can handle more wind if you wrap the sail around the mast a few times.

I'm not an expert about this, but I think boats are designed for a specific sail plan (or, rather, the sail plan is designed for a specific boat), so I suppose if you alter that sail plan, you might change the balance of the boat as far as helm.

However, I have always thought it would be nice if catamarans had reef points in their mainsails to extend their safe sailing wind range. The Hobie 16 used to have reef points, but they don't any more.