Yes but they're CHEAP investments. They're making cash again, but they're holding on to it this time. You will NEVER see a large coaster investment in any of their parks ever again...unless the company is purchased by someone with deep pockets. Their attitude towards SFMM in particular is, the former regime did all the heavy lifting for them (X2, Tatsu, Superman, Goliath), now all they have to do is plug in gimmicks and flashy branding and the LA/teenage market will eat it up. And they aren't wrong.
Problem is, though, that X2, Tatsu, Superman, Goliath and the rest will not last forever. They have a technical lifespan, and there's a limit to how long they will draw visitors as well. One day, a track inspection will register too much wear for the coaster to operate normally. The hydraulics might give out. Corrosion occur in footers. Spare parts might no longer remain available. And then what?
Say, for instance, that Scream gave out one day. It's not the most profilic or well-received coaster at the park, but its departure would be a loss to the lineup, taking away a bigger draw than anything built since the bankruptcy. None of the rides added in the past decade could make up for it. Or take Riddler. X2. Goliath. Tatsu. Even the Batman clone. Those are the rides people go to SFMM to experience, the huge coasters. Smaller ones like Apocalypse, Green Lantern, or even Full Throttle don't have the same staying factor, they're not part of the park's backbone to the same degree. When they reach the age of 20, will any of them enjoy the popularity something like Riddler has today? Will their inclusion in the lineup in 2030 draw as many people to the park as X2 does right now?
Those existing backbone coasters can't hold out forever. I assume Viper will be the first to go, it turns 30 in a couple of years, its track/car style is years out of style and the original manufacturer is long since gone. Then, if the B&Ms all can be expected to have the same lifespan, they four of them will kick the bucket within 12 years of each other (Goliath being exact in the middle of them in terms of age). X2 is a huge and complicated beast whose model line hasn't exactly been in high demand, for how long will S&S continue to provide service? For how long will the park be able to maintain it after that? For shorter or longer than the B&Ms? It's of roughly the same age, so it will need to be replaced around the same time too. The day any of those coasters die, the public will expect something on a similar scale to take its place. Assuming their lifespans to be more or less the same, they will be lost at a much faster rate than their successors are being built.
The coasters SFMM has built this past decade will be the fallback options when the current backbone coasters start to give in, but I don't think they're imposing enough to keep the park attendance up in that event. They are built to be the icing on the cake, neat additions to a strong, existing lineup, but when somebody takes a slice out of that cake you can't fill the hole in with only icing and expect the cake to stay as tasty as before. While their strategy of small investments, flashy branding and gimmicks is working in the short term, the Six Flags parks will look radically different in 20 years if they don't sprinkle the lineup with mainstay coasters every now and then too, since the parks are currently relying on coasters of a scale that won't be around in the future (unless they start building them, like, immediately). In that sense, West Coast Racers is more icing, meant to add to the existing lineup rather than carrying it through the coming decades. That's why it's a bit of a disappointment.
At least we can hold on to the hope that SFMM will stop at 20 coasters, declare 20 to be a nice number, and then start acting on a strategy to replace the aging oldies before they start failing. Because if they get to live out their full life spans, they will be lost in very rapid succession, and I doubt Six Flags will have the funds to replace them at that rate. Heck, the bankruptcy suggests they never had.
