If no-one wanted to ride wood structures then we wouldn't be having this relentless discussion.
People like riding wood, just look at how popular the Ladies rebuild is. Unfortunately it's hard to tear out a structure and replace it once it's reached the end of its life, and even then there are people who consider riding these structures to be a technical challenge rather than a safety issue.
We'll have the same problem with the woodwork on Ladies in 5 years, particularly that elevated drop. It's too bad we can't just install super-thick rungs and then pop off the top layer when they get a bit slick.
If you can't ride a few "slick rungs" then please go ride burnaby mountain or the sea wall.
Sadly enough the times of dangerous dan and the likes of 10 foot 4" skinnies to terrible transitions is gone, some for the better some not. What we are seeing now is the last remains of how the shore came about. A place where people were scared to ride some days. With the growing sport, more people and now sanctioning bodies that means this type of style is now unsafe or dangerous to the DNV.
What we have now is the nsmba, which is like whistler. Trails for all but none that someone could get seriously hurt on(if an actual good rider). There are some double black diamonds in nsmba's bag of goods but in reality most trails are blue and mayyyybeeeee black.
Case in point, boogieman. Once a knarly double black, only thing on that trail now that is double black is the last rock face section. Progression yes, since long gone is the possibility that someone might actually think about their skill level and relate it to the trail sign and difficulty.
You can't stop a sport from evolving but you sure can bitch about it like woman. Take it with a grain of salt but we are heading into the berm busting shralping GAY time of mountain biking. You know, when a sport get's so popular that people stop giving a fuck about trails and just destroy everything. Don't worry, after all the fan boy tld onezee wearing posers leave the shore will return, maybe not on the north shore but I know a lot of technically badass trails that make the best of today's north shore look like stanley park trails.
Would be interesting to see the stats if at all possible.
Amount of riders vs nsmba members in 2004
amount of riders vs nsmba members in 2012
I bet there was a better ratio in 2002.