I haven't even heard about the dustup, and one of the reasons that I pick the Laser is that the world of Laser sailing is so large that the Olympics are a tiny,

I haven't even heard about the dustup, and one of the reasons that I pick the Laser is that the world of Laser sailing is so large that the Olympics are a tiny, tiny fraction of it. There are very few Olympic classes for which that is the case. Much of the attraction of the class is the lack of innovation. Innovation in racing sailboats tends to sacrifice other qualities like seakindliness, survivability, and versatility. Look at the Americas Cup boats for extreme examples. They're amazingly fast, but useless for anything but that one task. Having a boat that has persisted as a first choice for Olympic racing and taking your kids out for daysail means that it is happens to have been an incredibly good design, and allowing innovation in the class is more likely to end up with reducing that versatility, rather the way the American Kennel Club's focus on conformation has destroyed dog breeds.