wow, I will agree with the above statement that the perceived "changes" to the designs are completely overblown. Anyone interested in either SPA or BPA should certainly come to a contest. I'm sure you'd walk away with very strong feeling of wanting to join in. I'm a current SPA member and competitor and can personally vouch for those folks. I've never attended a BPA event but judging by the class and quality of those folks involved here on the Classic Pattern Forum that are, I feel pretty confident in standing by that statement. I've personally heard from several of my SPA brothers that attended the BPA event this past summer and came away greatly impressed both with the class of people and quality of flyers.
I came to the SPA before the BPA was invented, but I flew "that" era of pattern, the 80s and early 90s. I had all my preconceived notions about pipes and retracts and us vs. them going into the event in '05 where SPA Secretary Steve Byrum allowed a pipes and retracts class to fly against regular competitors. It was great fun, but more then anything, the wheels down, taildraggers, 4-cycles didn't seem all that bad once we got there. Most of all the quailty of people, the kindness & willingness to help a guy that 1. wasn't from the area, 2. Probably had a chip on his shoulder about what he had vs. them, and 3 was certain his piped and retracted Tipo would slice and dice their glorified balsa boxes was unbelievable and totally refreshing. It was how I remembered pattern being when I competed regularly "back then".
To the simple mods, my family has apparently been sinning in pattern since the early 70s, cause through those years we had taildraggers when they werent' in fashion, different size ailerons, different shaped wingtips, reshaped rudders, ported motors etc. This was more personalizing then anything, and was seen up and down the flightlines here in Ohio when I competed in the 80s. I would urge all interested to attend an event before getting bent out of shape about anything in black and white.

As to the original intent of this thread, we will probably see some events here and there that will bring the organizations together from time to time like the fellas in FL are doing, and that's great, but they are two seperate organizations with slightly different (but equally valid) focuses (or should that be foci) and that's why they both exist, and what makes America great.