Hobie Alter is certainly worthy and deserving of having his name on the trophy, and I think the Multihull Council probably made the best decision in choosing him because he was somebody that everybody could agree on and his impact on the sport was obviously the most dramatic. In fact, if it had not been for the explosion in catamaran sailing that was caused by Hobie Alter, we probably never would have had enough clout to even have a Multihull Council in US Sailing in the first place (and, therefore, would not have a national U.S. Multihull Sailing Championship).
I don't know whether there were other candidates for the honor back when the trophy was established in 1985, but I would think they would have included:
--The Gougeon brothers (Jan and Meade), who were the best-known early pioneers experimenting with high-tech, small catamarans back in the 1950's.
--George Alleman, who (starting in 1961 got one-design catamaran racing well established in the United States as distributor first for the Shark and then for the Tornado.
--Dick Blanchard, who (circa 1960) founded the North American Multihull Sailing Association and developed the Portsmouth yardstick for small cats in the United States and put out the NAMSA newsletter for many years.

It would have been a difficult decision (at least for me)among those three, but I think I would have gone with Blanchard, because his contributions to the sport should never be forgotten. (He is now deceased.)