I agree with you Herb.

When I competed, I had more safety concerns on course in large gaggles (regionals and nationals) than I had on runs or turn points.

I guess, the "safety aspect" brought up will lead to banning ridge ontest flights (Mifflin, Ridge Soaring, Newcastle come to mind, I've flown all 3 places) due to even narrower height bands and even higher speeds!
Best example, the Newcastle "back ridge dump task" (to the tunnels by Blacksburg) can have dry speeds over 120MPH, that's a 240MPH closure speed.