Doesn't this whole thing just mirror how everything works now, where the few spots at the top get swarmed while the rest of it sits wide open? Same deal with camping reservations, concert tickets, dinner spots, you name it. The headline number is never the real story, it's the bottleneck that everybody trips over. Most folks on the JMT aren't even finishing the thing, they're just out for a few days and grabbing whatever permit they can get. Took me two summers to land a Donohue exit, and honestly the section hikers were the ones who made the trip fun anyway.