For someone with your background, I find it funny that you would attempt to make the claim that the THS bowlers run the sport. You may run the Recreation, but you most certainly do not run the SPORT.
On second thought, perhaps you are correct. After all you and your mostly non-competitive, only bowl for the fun of it brethren, have been in charge over the last 3 decades or so, thanks in large part to the Delegate system used by ABC. Perhaps you may want to lay claim to being partly responsible for the decline in membership? After all, this occurred during your watch.
The SPORT is governed and ruled by USBC, period. If they choose to mandate some type of condition, so be it. They certainly will not though, unless they were to have the support of the proprietors.
That said, the rhethoric being bandied about by both USBC leaders and BPAA leaders is to "GROW THE SPORT." Perhaps the proprietors have seen that giving the masses what they alledgedly want (high scores), hasn't led to the growth they assumed would occur. Perhaps massive changes are already underway.
Kegel developed the "Standard Ball" after being requested to look into its viability by one of the International governing bodies (WTBA, I think). They did not invest countless amounts of time/money just to say they did it. That said, perhaps Kegel's new lane conditioning formats were created in response to a request from someone (perhaps USBC & BPAA) in order to create various playing fields that could ultimately lead to some type of tiered membership concept, with the ultimate goal being the recognition of bowling, at its highest level, as a SPORT.
So let's say that is exactly what would happen, tiered membership with lane conditions of varying levels of difficulty, and varying levels/types of awards to complement each level. Where would you and your brethren go? Would you automatically sign up for the easiest level and then complain that the awards are poor? Would you step-up to the highest level and a sense of accomplishment over something small (perhaps a clean set)? Would you be somewhere in between?
Let's assume that this were the reality, where would you go? Most of the clamoring for the THS comes from those that claim they are only in it for fun...so if this were the reality, then all of them would stay in the lowest levels of competition (where the shot is the easist and the awards the poorest), right? I have my doubts.
