Slowly making my way through that thread, some good stuff in there.
Couple things on what the OP said about adding a 350 class and how it'll bring more money to the privateers. In simple terms the sport has a set amount of sponsor money from within the industry. So adding another class/more riders will only make it worse as you now have more riders competing for the same amount of dollars. One thing I could see maybe helping keep privateer costs down would be adding a stock class where the only thing you can change is suspension. Which would have to be a consumer available suspension service and most likely a price cap. This could also give us a very competitive race.
Not sure how much a stock class would do to lower privateer costs though. From what I understand travel is the biggest expense. Which is why I don't understand why they schedule these events where you do nothing but crisscross the country.