I probably shouldn't say this loudly, but some children are more gifted intellectually than others. I was just lucky enough to have the aptitude to pass all the exams offered when I was a kid. Your experience is similar, save that you had even more obstacles than I did. It's true that children are more likely to take to code since most do not labor under the delusion that "code's hard".
Not just code, either. Remember that the written exams have to be passed, and that before 2000 there were five of them required for Extra, rather than today's three.
Also, language acquisition is easier for children. Still, while a number of kids in my high school club had Extras, most remained (no code) Techs. A few struggled and pass the General. In sum, perhaps 15% were Extra and most of the rest Techs. A good yield, but nevertheless demonstrative of the influences of aptitude and motivation in the VE-era pre-restructuring days. I wonder about the experiences of high-school students that have entered and advanced through the ham ranks after restructuring.
In a recent QST there was an article about hams who had earned scholarships. All of them were high school seniors. The article took a couple of pages to list them all.
It should be remembered that some young folks get their licenses well before high school. The current record for a General is six years old, and seven for the Extra. I suspect that such accomplishments bother some older hams, for some reason.
Of course the game of reduce-the-license-requirements can only go on for so long. It's similar to how lowering the price of something can bring a burst of sales for a while.
IMHO the main reasons for slow growth aren't the license requirements, and never have been. Other factors are the dominant ones, but they're much harder to recognize and even more difficult to change.
A comment that I responded to on qrz.com illustrates the inevitable "class conflict" that surrounds the restructuring (ugh, Marxist constructs in ham radio forums? should stay away from that). Blaming DX CW jamming on new operators who are "jealous" of older code-licensed hams is simply irresponsible and even malicious. Anyone who was an operator before restructuring knows that malicious operators have always been a hallmark of DXpedition pileups. Similarly, some older hams are peeved that a new ham can pass the Extra and get a W series 1x2 soon after. Life's too short to worry about these issues of class and status. The proof is the fist, not whether or not someone can plunk down the VISA for a vanity application.
It's been possible to go from no license to Extra in one exam session since the mid-1970s. The present vanity system has been around since the early 1990s, and there were 1x2 sequentials long before that (mine is a sequential call from 1977).
There have always been clueless newer hams who caused QRM and made dumb mistakes. Maybe there were fewer in the old days, maybe there were more, no real way to tell.
What has changed with time is the visibility. In the bad old pre-internet days, if a newbie asked a dumb question, it didn't get very far. Same for a cutting remark by an old-timer. Today, such things can get a very wide online audience.
There's also a sort of "internet forum syndrome" that afflicts a few folks. This is the behavior where, rather than read a book or googling, a person just asks a question and expects a customized answer. The endless discussions of G5RVs and T2FDs are an example.
In any social system there are issues of "class". What matters is how class is defined.
For example, is class determined by knowledge, skill and achievement? Or by conspicuous consumption? Is it simply a matter of time-in-grade, or a matter of how that time is used? Is the top class something anyone can aspire to and reach, by what they do? Etc.
I think what bothers some folks is that the real marks of a high-class radio amateur (courtesy, skill, knowledge) cannot be bought; they can only be earned - regardless of the license class or tests passed.
I also agree that a continual and rapid devaluation of licensing requirements will bring short term gains at the expense of the social fabric of the ham community. More dominant issues, such as demographics, gender disparity, and ethno-cultural homogenization in the ham community, are intractable for the most part. It is irrelevant if a person has waited for decades to be a ham because he or she could not or would not master the code. The formation of a new cohort of courteous operators regardless of entry point trumps individual misgivings about the direction of licensing reforms. This formation of new operators must take place within a license structure that remains stable for at least a few decades.
But the license structure has never been stable for a few decades. At least not in the USA. Look back over the entire 99 year history of Amateur Radio licensing in the USA, and every decade or so there's an upheaval in the license requirements.
For example:
The pre-WW1 system was interrupted by the war, and what came back afterwards was different.
The 1920s saw the radical changes from 200 meter spark to the short-waves, international regulations and broadcasting.
The 1930s brought the FRC, FCC and the ABC system.
The 1940s had the interruption of WW2.
The 1950s brought the Novice, Tech and Extra in the 1951 restructuring, shortly followed by the 1953 Generals-get-all giveaway.
The 1960s brought incentive licensing, which was most strongly felt in the 1970s.
The 1980s brought the VE system, Bash books, 10 year licenses and CSCEs.
The 1990s brought medical waivers, a nocodetest license, a new vanity program and the 2000 restructuring.
Those are just the high points; if you look carefully at the history there are even more changes that seemed small at the time but had big effects. For example, the CSCE system meant that a ham could upgrade one test at a time, focusing all their effort on a single test element until it was passed. Which changed the game somewhat.
73 de Jim, N2EY