I don't get ability based nor does my 13 year old daughter when I asked her about it. So your the best 22 off skier, great. She doesn't go to tournaments to try to be best of the mediocre, she goes to try and be the best that she can be, and looking at the scores of the girls that are better and higher on the ranking list pushes her to try even harder.
Why not have handicapped tournaments at the State level, I know Ohio does this and their tournaments seem to have a decent turn out, this seems to make things more interesting and competitive.
Is it the ability based brackets that make INT more enjoyable to attend, I would say no? Everyone on shore is cheering for the person on the water. Some of the AWSA tournaments I have been to, people show up, ski and leave, no cheering for anyone else, no support, they get their score and leave. Seems like the social aspect needs to change. Not how we score.
There is also a ton of bureaucratic B.S. you have to go through to get involved as a judge, scorer, driver etc in AWSA. INT, if you can count to 6, good, get in the boat and score. I know this might be oversimplified but it seems like we could make it easier for new people to get involved and not feel intimidated about all the B.S. that goes on to having a tournament.