I can certainly understand your feelings Maxum, probably not far off the mark. I was pretty amazed at how much the boating environment had changed from my boatless period from 1997 until 2007. I've come to believe that during this ten year period, the financial reality of owning a boat temporarily vanished, and a whole new cast of characters entered the fray.
It's quite obvious that many "boaters" today have no previous experience on the water at all, and many people that are new boat owners are not even close to what I grew up with, or came to "assume" was common. If you take people with attitudes and arrogance from our roads and highways and transplant them in a boat, you have what we have today. Before I paint with too broad a brush, I agree with most that it's the "few" that stick out more than anything. Most boaters everywhere are good people, careful people, that simply want to enjoy the sport. But add to that mix the new crowd, and it appears to be a major change.
I was at anchor Wednesday night, enjoying the warmer waters and beautiful sunset. This was in a large beach area, where it's between 3' and 12' of mostly sandy shoreline for a mile out. A minor disruption was a 20' bowrider towing a tube, from near the beach area, between anchored boats, with his wake smashing us every few minutes
Just a mom, dad and a couple of kids having fun. I'll bet he had no idea what he was doing wrong, he didn't look like the "type" we speak of as boneheads or cowboys. Probably just someone relatively new to boating, that hadn't had the common water sense to relate his own boat rocking wildly at anchor, to his own actions when tubing.
Outside of people refusing to deviate from a straight line of travel to their destination, regardless of your boat's course and options, smaller boats with tubers and those going way to close at speed account for at least 80% of my issues on the water. The vast majority of people I know that overnight do so in sheltered coves or at marinas. Most of these folks are very friendly boaters, not causing problems or being loud and obnoxious. I'm sure there are exceptions, I've just not witnessed them. At anchor or rafting during the daytime, that's usually when you spot the tiny minority of problem people. Drinking is a big problem in these groups, though not always. Most of these obnoxious, oblivious to everyone else boaters are daytime only boaters. They usually terrorize others while on land at night
As for enforcement, 99% of the issues regarding rowdy, drinking, obnoxious and dangerous boaters are found during the daytime. Rarely are the people in this majority the same as those that overnight on a boat. In fact, if these boneheads and binge drinkers were effectively dealt with during the daytime, this thread would not be what it is, mostly perception and worry.