However you slice it, the N 40 is cramped, and the S 40 is very open, and I think that calling the Cessnas and Bonanzas that park in the S 40 "showplanes" is semantics, there being no substantive difference between those of the '60s and the '70s, and the planes are largely not treated as showplanes. People just fly in and pitch a tent. 99% of them do not put out a display plaque or sign, don't clean the planes, nothing, for the show. It looks like the N 40, except that it's more wide open.
I'm sure the S 40 likes their elbow room, but I do think that, as the years have marched on, adjustment needs to be made to reallocate parking/camping availability, as newer planes are as valued to the show as older ones, and pay just as much money to be there, camp, etc.
Keeping the flight line more open? Makes no sense per this discussion. There is very little traffic through the South 40. I've witnessed that for 20 years. The area of congestion is Show Center, where there is no airplane camping by anyone. Flight line operations rarely use taxilanes through camping areas--and I say rarely, optimistically. I've never seen air show planes taxying through vintage camping areas, between planes with tents. If it happens, it's rare. Like I say, I've been going for.....since 1989.
Safety? The congestion in the N 40 far surpasses the openness of the S 40, and planes come and go much more frequently up there, because of the congestion--and around more tents and pedestrians, again due to the congestion.
Discussion in favor of keeping things cramped in the N 40, of not adjusting the year to 1980 or something for planes to go to the S 40, of keeping the S 40 open like it is, seems less based on the needs of the show than on
(1) the desire of the S 40 to keep its elbow room, and
(2) inertia, of keeping things as they are, even though years march on with more newer planes needing to find parking.
Jen