Olympic costs are always higher than any normal sailor is willing to pay. I'm sure top Tornado teams would have new spins at least every 2 regattas and new mains/jibs every 4 regattas, something along that line. These guys buy enough sails in one year to pay for a new boat, and then buy a new boat every year anyway. The Tornado was an exception in this regard, with 5 year old boats competitive with brand new ones on an Olympic scale. It was honestly one of the cheaper boats to campaign (there is a long article about this on the web, I don't have the link offhand).

Back to the topic at hand, I agree with everything Jake is saying. I believe Trey was saying that you pay more for a Performance/Glaser/Ullman sail than the same sail built at a local loft, because the name brand sails have a reputation behind them that they are fast, not that these sails will cost more than what we are currently paying.

As far as boat on boat testing, Jake is absolutely correct that we don't need boat on boat testing get a 5% performance gain, but it can't hurt. If the class is opposed, we don't have to do this.

Timeline: I don't see why we can't get a new spin Q1 2011 and a new main AND jib Q2 2012. This makes the development a 2 year timeline, which is much better than a 3 year timeline imo, even if it costs more in outlay in 2 years time (buy two sails instead of one). It also make more sense, as people generally replace the main and jib at the same time, and both sails are linked together (flow wise) when sailing to windward, and even to some extent downwind (although the spin is more important).