Iron Fist's thread on cheapening the arts brought to mind a few observations I have had over the years:

1. Not everyone is wired to be a warrior. Even among those that are, there are tiers. The military is a good example of this, becoming a special operator tests the mental and emotional wiring just as much if not more than it does the physical attributes. This is an inconvenient truth that many in MA choose to overlook, and were you to survey martial arts students and teachers alike, you would likely find that their thoughts on what they are capable of may vary quite a bit from what they actually are capable of.

2. There are often not enough students that want to fight and get banged up out there to run a successful school that teaches only this aspect of the martial arts, yet that is exactly what these arts are based around at their core, or at least in some cases, were when created.

3. Some people that attend classes but are not there to fight have other talents that they bring to the equation, such as being sort of a social "glue" for the group, good with organizing and helping things run smoothly, etc. If we cut them from the equation then we make things much tougher and often less desirable across the board from a logistics standpoint, but if we accept them, we must accept that we are teaching people that are not likely to become fighters, a common complaint about martial arts is that a person that has been around for 10+ years cannot fight.

So it appears that if someone wished to teach only fighters in a non sport specific discipline, it means that they are going to potentially be teaching out of pocket, likely struggle with students leaving and small numbers of students to work with in the first place. No wonder there is not more of the good stuff out there.