Everyone has a point where an event doesn't feel worth the price. I don't think any and all criticism of promoters should be verboten, after all, they are producing a product and we the customer have a right to expect a certain level of quality. That said, that doesn't mean that road races are not underpriced relative to the cost to produce them and that race promotion is not under-appreciated. And I'm definitely not comfortable saying promoters should just accept that they should labor so hard to simply break even, at best. The thing is, though, something has to change in a big way for people to be willing to pay what the promoter perceives as the real value of an event. That mismatch in perception of value is a problem, and if you think the issue is just that bike racers are a bunch of whiny entitled brats, well, you're not going to solve the problem and you're going to piss people off.
With respect to Dieter, success hides problems, and if thousands of people keep coming back, I hear over and over again about people being dissatisfied with the experience they paid for. You can chalk it up to entitlement and haters if you like, and no doubt you'd be partly right, but I don't hear this about every event. Personally, I did Battenkill in 2009 and had no particular complaints except for my result not being recorded; but I was so far off the back that it didn't matter. And Dieter was kind enough to put me on the pre-reg list, in those sell-out days, when I was too broke to pay before race day. So it's complicated. Anyway, not the most coherent assemblage of thoughts ever, I suppose.