Revamping one designs: your experiance

 Why am I not surprised?

Turkeys thinking they've rejected Christmas...

It is all about marketing and distribution. I think we all agree they are pretty good at that. 

Plus the class association has the backing of professional people (paid staff) to do a lot of the admin leg work for them.

This is reflected in the fees, £40 or so for full membership of the RS Assoc with the Fireball being £20 for the same membership.

I think the marketing of RS helps getting boats off the ground, but after a few years it's not a big factor. Much more important is the demographic of the fleet which is determined by the ideal weight and the roles of the crew. Then you have external factors that determine how many people fit that demographic. 

The 200 hasn't dipped below 80 boats at a nationals in 16 years, and the lower number before this were due to it being  anew class (deigned in 1995)... (only Topper and Oppy beat this record, but they are single handed (not as many people), and are youth supported. 

What would be interesting would be to see the female participation. I'd wager the 200 has the highest female participation of any class outside of youths and juniors (and it's probably pretty similar to them). The top of the fleet is a roughly 50-50 split. 

I think that, coupled with the fact that you can pick up any old boat and be competitive, has a lot more to do with popularity of the 200 than anything else; especially with younger sailors.