No one has mentioned the sandbagging aspect of tournament play? I used to play tournaments and was a PDGA member. Over time, family had to come first. But the other side was the racket tournaments seemed to be. I was playing advanced. I honestly couldn't compete in open to the level of cashing. Sometimes I did, but generally I couldn't sustain four rounds or so to be competitive. However, there were players that dropped from open down to advanced and essentially for the same reason I just mentioned. This allowed them to overwhelmingly in most cases win advanced outright. This is no good for me. Then there is the whole merch bucks aspect. Most players accumulate swag, discs, etc.. over time. To offset costs of tournaments, travel, food, etc.. you'd need to unload this merchandise and selling online, mailing discs, communicating back n forth with people through various sites is just a pain. So with that said, no I'm not current
Not sure what the bolded has to do with the PDGA at all. Choosing to sell merch accumulated at events (which don't have to be sanctioned to pay out that merch) is a personal choice. You don't have to be a member to do that, nor do you have to do it if you are a member.
As for sandbagging, PDGA events are basically the only place where you have rules and protections against that. That's the whole purpose of the ratings system. If an "Open" player is dropping down to Advanced, he's doing it because he's allowed to by the PDGA and because he's arguably not really an "Open" player by skill/ratings standards. If such a player is trouncing and "overwhelmingly" winning Advanced tournaments, perhaps many in the field aren't truly Advanced level in the first place.
Seems to me, avoiding sandbagging and sandbaggers would be a reason to join the PDGA and play PDGA events, not the opposite.