Don,
It sounds like you are talking about shorter range shooting. If I fire a 7 mm Sierra 175-grain SPBT at 2700 fps and again at 2650, at 100 yards the drop difference is only 0.1 inches. Nobody but a top-ranked benchrest shooter is even likely to be able to detect it on the paper, and maybe not even then. At 200, it grows to 0.4 inches difference, and at 300 yards it grows to 1 inch. Those numbers are all within what most people consider darn good shooting at those distances. But if you are shooting at 1000 yards, the drop difference grows to 16 inches and that's enough to cause you to miss a gong or popper or drop points on a target.
So, I think the answer to your observation about the increasing complexity is that when very few people were shooting at long ranges (before F-Class competition in particular), few people shot far enough for it to matter and most matches were held using targets developed for service rifles that didn't require super-precision. But between Bryan Litz and others spreading the ballistics gospel, it became apparent that people who had detailed technical knowledge won more matches or rose in the winning ranks more rapidly than those who didn't.
So, while it is still possible to win a match without deep ballistics understanding or to find good loads by more rudimentary trial and error, the people who delve into the science have been found to have a competitive edge. Competitors want that (or any other edge they can get; just look at what is spent on top equipment and supplies). The up-and-coming competitors don't want to cede that edge to the top competitors, either. So, with the help of computers and cell phone apps and some top people experimenting and publishing, the technical deep-dive has taken on a life of its own.
It sounds like you are talking about shorter range shooting. If I fire a 7 mm Sierra 175-grain SPBT at 2700 fps and again at 2650, at 100 yards the drop difference is only 0.1 inches. Nobody but a top-ranked benchrest shooter is even likely to be able to detect it on the paper, and maybe not even then. At 200, it grows to 0.4 inches difference, and at 300 yards it grows to 1 inch. Those numbers are all within what most people consider darn good shooting at those distances. But if you are shooting at 1000 yards, the drop difference grows to 16 inches and that's enough to cause you to miss a gong or popper or drop points on a target.
So, I think the answer to your observation about the increasing complexity is that when very few people were shooting at long ranges (before F-Class competition in particular), few people shot far enough for it to matter and most matches were held using targets developed for service rifles that didn't require super-precision. But between Bryan Litz and others spreading the ballistics gospel, it became apparent that people who had detailed technical knowledge won more matches or rose in the winning ranks more rapidly than those who didn't.
So, while it is still possible to win a match without deep ballistics understanding or to find good loads by more rudimentary trial and error, the people who delve into the science have been found to have a competitive edge. Competitors want that (or any other edge they can get; just look at what is spent on top equipment and supplies). The up-and-coming competitors don't want to cede that edge to the top competitors, either. So, with the help of computers and cell phone apps and some top people experimenting and publishing, the technical deep-dive has taken on a life of its own.