Good discussion, going back to Evan's post and focusing on the stated problem:
"I know once they attend a contest a certain percentage will be hooked but the problem I ran into is that the guys found the call sheets and manuever descriptions by themselves intimidating and they told me that they didn't think they were ready to try it."
Considering what can and can't reasonably changed in light of the problem statement above, another proposition is to make the Sportsman sequence just a little bit easier without changing anything else (entry fees, etc can all be managed at the local club level); this might do two things for the sport in synergy: (1) Allow some stuck in Sportsman to win more and advance to Intermediate, opening up some opportunity for the less experienced pilots; and (2) make the first sequence encountered less intimidating and easier to get one's head around. Rather than dumbing down anything, think of it as redistributing the difficulty between the two classes and getting better utility out of the Intermediate class. When considering this proposition, I invite all to seriously consider just how challenging it is to complete two identical loops back-to-back. This is simple on paper but requires great skill and experience to accomplish when correcting for wind. Why not one loop for the entry-level sequence? Just a thought to Evan's original post.