I don`t believe it would hurt the event - it may just move the goalposts a bit further away from the "average" sailor with an average budget. It won`t deter the big boys, but will rather attract even more of them to the event - good for the event, not good if you intended doing it one day & belong to the "average" group. In an e-mail reply Mike Worrell stated that the event was no longer for the average cat sailor to aspire to, but rather more geared up toward semi-pro or pro sailors, as he put it "the worlds best". The event has become the "Volvo Ocean Race" of cat sailing, already out of reach of most of us.
All it really means is that this is the last time we may see the following headline (taken from catsailor.com web-site
"Brian Lambert, skipper of Team Alexanders and repeat winner of the Worrell 1000, is going to be presented with the All Sports Association Inc's., Amateur Award, that recognizes an outstanding Florida Amateur Athlete. The award will be presented in Ft Walton Beach at the fairgrounds with around 1000 people expected to attend, including crew Jamie Livingston, Beetle Bailey and Richard Senn, team managers. This will be the third time this award has been presented to a Worrell 1000 winner -- Carlton Tucker in 1982, and Randy Smyth in 2000."
An Amateur sports award will not be presented to anyone who sails professionally, I believe $400 000 is enough to convince the judges of such an award that this is no longer an amateur event - if indeed it still is, as I would like to believe, although it has already transcended the spirt of an amateur event by way of it`s exclusivity.
I don`t see any of this as bad - Formula 1 or Indycar racing is no longer ana amateur sport, although it once may have been, and it`s popularity among spectators is huge. Hopefully the Worrell can do the same thing for cat-sailing - create public awareness & enthusiasm among non-sailors who then migrate to the sport. The rest is up to sailing clubs, to harness & grow that enthusiasm in order to grow the sport.
In a perfect world, maybe.

Steve