that's how you learn man! nothing like going and flying the same task as sarah arnold, and she beats you by 5MPH raw speed in her ASW15 while you flew a discus CS. makes you feel like the biggest idiot in the world!

an old saying comes to mind: "if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room." basically i disagree with skill or experience based contest classes outside of the current separation (regionals vs. nationals). i feel like it will inhibit personal growth as pilots. i know that i became a better pilot by flying against pilots who were better than i am. matter of fact, i'm still doing it. safely completing a regional's gives you all the tools you need to fly safely in a nationals. and all of us a responsible to sit out a mission we aren't comfortable with, or that we feel is outside of our capacity to handle. i see it all the time. people sat out certain ridge tasks at the sports class nationals this past year. in my first contest, i didn't attempt one of the tasks, because i thought the cloud was too low for me to be comfortable.

I basically agree with everything you've said (and have been beaten, repeatedly, by Sarah in that 15), the question is is there a pool of pilots out there who are not competing, but would if there were skill-based classes. I doubt it, but might be worth exploring if we haven't already.