To answer the OP, Opti's.

I learned to sail on a friends H14 at age 11. Transitioned to the whole FJ/420 scene for high school/college, then quickly got back into beach cats with the N20 and now F18 as an adult. My current helm learned to sail and race in college and again primarily sailed FJ's/420's. She is a very good sailor but has learned a lot racing a high performance beach cat.

That is the general issue with U.S Sailing today. The program still has not figured out how to get more people racing after college, in the Olympics etc. There is a huge disconnect between college sailing and the real-world. Most college sailors enjoy sailing so will do it post-grad but on what boat is the question. Not enough have exposure to fast boats or tweaky Olympic type boats and I still don't see U.S Sailing changing this to get more sailors on the performance dinghy and/or Olympic circuit, it's still the elite playing that game and you have to pay $$$.