I'm not really sure what your beef is. How does me facing the reality that the unit isn't what it was 10 years ago magically make it better? As long as they give out tags there, I will apply.
I am pretty new to hunting, so maybe I haven't been spoiled on expecting a trophy every year, but compared to going with my older brother growing up in Utah, there are a ton more bucks here. In two days of hiking the Rubies in the early season, I saw 6 bucks. One 4 point, two 3 X 2, two 2 points and a spike.
This is only my 3rd year hunting deer, so either I got a lot better than everyone else who likely have been doing it much longer than me, or there is some other way to explain success rates. Perhaps a lot of other people are holding out for the big one. Maybe they are holding out for that one to jump out in front of them as they are driving their side by side. (This is personal guess. I only saw one other group of hunters out hiking while everyone else just drove the roads.)
Whatever it is, I'm not concerned with what success rates for the previous ten years are, or what tags have done in that time span. As far as I'm concerned, it's still a great unit, even if not as great as it once was.