While VHF/UHF is arguably more useful...the real “magic” of amateur radio for me has always been a voice from afar.
My conviction is that HF has better promise of keeping the interest of new hams than VHF/UHF overall, were new hams to be guided and mentored effectively, and in a fun way, into HF operating.
I think this perspective fails to reflect both the history of radio since the 1950s and, more significantly, the recent development of consumer communications with the internet and wireless telephone services.
When many of us became hams, in the decades immediately following WWII, there was little, if any, TV, and radio
was the major communication medium for most people. Listening to broadcast AM and FM radio was more interesting because of local programming, some of it of very high quality. Shortwave broadcast radio was exceedingly attractive to a teenager who was curious about the world beyond the borders of the US.
The Technician license, when it was first available, came at a time when there was far less knowledge and use of VHF/UHF frequencies, especially among amateurs. Not at all like today.
Today's youngsters, I think, are highly unlikely to find HF communication "fun". Twitter, Facebook and Youtube
are likely today's alternatives to listening to the shortwave broadcasts of yesterday.
The marketing and the future of ham radio are certainly difficult challenges. I think the attractions to today's
intelligent young people are our connections to basic science and thoughtful experimentation, technical communication expertise and provision of emergency communications if and when the internet and wireless phone networks go down, and possible interest in the history of RF science and early RF communication history.