Coach,
I've been to this dance before.
There needs to be consensus with what "competitive" means. Are you satisified with being competitive within the low country district, the state, the region, the nation? All of these are different levels of competitiveness, and all of them are different in requirements.
In response to your devil's advocate statement. I don't think people are trying to eliminate competition for the sake of players and teams being competitive. A different view is, to be competitive we need all of the players together, but at club x, not club y. I have said several times that all of the soccer folks know that to be competitive, consolidation needs to occur, but at my club, not the others.
