Chase, look on the bright side, as far as I know, low turn out be damned, everyone that actually came and played had fun and would play in a similar tournament again. And I know that we lost one, I think two, teams the night before and another player to another event and another to work.
The only minor criticism I would have to the event was that with the lower turn out, the tables could have been spread out a little differently to allow easier model storage. And that is really in no way a big deal or issue.
I get some of the hate, hell, I think GW does some pretty stupid stuff too, especially marketing practices. But at the same time, I don't get some of the serious bickering that goes on in certain threads. Stuff about new supplements and rules, ok, I get it, there can and probably should be some discussion there, that's what a forum is for.
But in the event threads, the point has already been made elsewhere, the event host has made the decisions, if you can live with it, play, if you can't, don't show up.
As an additional note, these arguments over everything do drive potential players away. How do I know, because I'm one of them. I tried this event because I was told the last doubles event was fun, so I gave it a shot. And I'm glad I did, I had a great day. But seeing page after page of back and forth poo flinging does make more casual players like myself assume, fairly or not, that an event is going to be a verbal and visual version of the threads.