When the F3K Provisional Rules were first published, I think in 1999, there was something of an uproar, particularly from the USA, saying a number of the tasks were inappropriate and appeared to have been put together by people who didn't fly HLG. From memory I believe it was a Belgium group who submitted the proposal. In their defence the rules are provisional and it was intended they should provide a basis on which to work. I don't think anyone has complained about the overall rules, it is only the suggested tasks that are queried.
With discus launching and the introduction of bagged and moulded HLG models interest in the class has increased and things have moved on since 1999. Canada is host for the F3J World Championships in 2004 and there is talk of having an F3K competition or at least an F3K presence at the event.
Certainly there is no need to get bogged down in arguing about the various tasks, as Achim Streit from Germany said in his report in Aufwind "the idea behind F3K and its various tasks is to enjoy yourself." In his experience, that’s just what happens.
Out of curiosity I did compare the tasks from the F3K Provisional Rules with other tasks I had come across - it seems that not many of the original suggestions are being used.
Whilst the flying is paramount don't forget the tasks have to be scored. The more complex the task the more likely things will go wrong with recording the results.
A number of the of the F3K provisional tasks give a result as a single point for each part of the task completed, whilst others normalise the task with the winner getting 1000 and the rest a proportion. Presumably you could then normalise the single point results but that does then mean on a 9 point maximum task you then get 888, 777, 666 and so on for the other scores; not the broad distribution that scoring by the second would give.
Tony Beckett