Here's how I see it, with my credentials being a complete newcomer to the competitive scene with 2-3 games on the old Westwood client and one attempted game on the CnCnet client.
There is just such a high barrier to entry. Been watching a few of Doc Brian's videos which made me interested in coming back, but have found a few snags. The first is that it takes forever to actually start a game. I must've stayed in the lobby for 15 minutes and when it finally filled up, the game never even started. Another is the lag in-game of sometimes freezing up every other second, which looks annoying as all. Last is just that some of you have been playing for the last 15+ years while some are just starting competitively, which sets the entry bar almost impossibly high.
I'm not in the camp of trying to play Sim City with tanks (although that would be a fun concept), the notion of waiting 10+ minutes to get into a round which may or may not be laggy and then get your ass handed to doesn't seem like a fun time. And then considering you would need tens of such matches even to begin learning how to play, and you can see where it goes from there.
