[neutrino23]

The whole tech universe is evolving at blinding speed. The bronze age lasted 1400 years. In our world things last for perhaps a year or two.
In a sense we've suffered from our own success. Everything used to cost $5,000; high end CRTs, laser printers, laptops, big hard drives. Now everything is unbelievably cheap. That's great but you can't have a booth at MWSF if you sell a $70 widget.
It used to be so interesting to cruise the aisles and see all the interesting ideas that people had turned into products. Now all that stuff is built in or given away with the purchase of a laptop.
MWSF has the potential to survive if they can make it a counterpoint to WWDC. The developers conference is well attended because it is valuable for developers. Similarly, MWSF could be valuable for users looking for training to use the applications developed for the Mac platform.
Right now I think there is a gap in what is offered. There seems to be a lot for the IT professional and there is a lot for the new user. There is not much for the experienced user looking to move from beginner level to professional level.
To be sure there are much longer courses offered in design, video production, photography and such. MWSF could be the focus for those of us who only have one week to devote to "professional development".
I've been taking courses at MWSF for the last ten years or so but I pay for it myself. To get my company to pay for it I'd need something spanning a few days and something more focussed.
For example, Edward Tufte offers day long courses in SF each year on the topic of presentation of quantitative information and they are heavily subscribed to.
We don't need another hour spent telling us about the inspector panel in Keynote, instead teach us about good design and along the way show us how to achieve those effects with Keynote, Pages, Final Cut, etc.
My company encourages me to attend some sort of professional training each year and I wish that I could get them to pay for my trips to MWSF but the current format is not focussed enough for that.