Boating surely has changed. I've seen GFBL boaters looking at cruisers, pontoon boats have sold better than anything else. If I wanted to reside on a quiet lake, do the nature and small camp thing, fish, I'd not do it on a big lake. Smaller boats on big lakes have issues. As I told my dad over twenty years ago, there's a reason that Winni boaters were trending towards bigger boats. Self-defense and big wakes. Sure there's the more room bit, plus trying to take a twenty mile cruise on a busy lake in a 20' boat can be quite slow, and very bumpy. That's how the GF crowd got started on Winni in the first place.
There are plenty of lakes here in Vermont to do the small boat thing, many are very quiet, offer great fishing, perfect for kayaking, rowing, canoes, even 12' aluminum boats do quite well. If I had any of those boats, I'd rarely, if ever, venture out into Lake Champlain. On a very congested lake like Winni, I'd never do it. I don't think you can turn a larger lake into a smaller one, which is a vision some folks have in mind.
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