Jake:
1.Baby steps. we are damn lucky to get multihulls in at all, especially after the above debacle. It will be an extremely hard sell to get anything smaller than 20' in. Sorry.
2.Maybe in your neck, but down here there are the 'Formula' N20, an N20C, and there's a certain Tornado

and a couple Supercat/ARC
3. This isn't an along-the-beach race - the marks are well offshore, to the tune of out of sight of land. I well understand the OA reticence to allow beachcats in.