My son likes the princesses and we do multiple character meals every trip with him. I'm curious about what kind of surveys are being given and when/how that are telling disney that parents don't seem to take boys to character meals. to the point that they'd just write off the option.
The nick hotel does power ranger weekends, ninja turtle meals and spongebob meals. are those "boy" things? when was the toy story meal planned for? prior to 2009 - 10ish? I never heard of it and we would have absolutely taken our son if I had.
lets just assume that people who take boys lock them up in closets and throw peanut butter sandwiches at them at meal times while taking their girls to character meals

Even if that were true, don't girls like toy story? star wars? pirates?
we are booked at the nick hotel and using dvc points for a weekend in october so that we can take our then 5 year old son to power rangers weekend without actually staying at nick hotel. we'll do the ninja turtle meal too.
I don't work for disney but we go a lot and it seems as though character meals book up. I'm surprised that given that success Disney wouldn't test more gender neutral character dining. I think its a much more complicated issue then girls being taken to character meals repeatedly more then boys. Again, i don't know what the surveys are but so many things could play into that:
1. the current character dining offerings may not appeal to boys so the parents don't take them back or;
2. who are taking the surveys? character dining guests? wdw resort guests? the pool surveyed could be skewing this.
I don't really see where there is a history on this as it applies to boys in general. One non-princess failed meal attempt shouldn't be the be all end all. maybe toy story wasn't right? maybe the time was wrong? who knows.
I just see a lot of interest in these meals among my friends with boys and our family and here on the boards. So I have to question why people would say in one place that yes they would take their boys to these meals and then fill out surveys saying no they would not. We are booked at both star wars meals the first week of june with one child who is a boy.
I think Disney is missing a large market which they no doubt realize. Perhaps at some point they will do something about it but I'm sure what they're doing is intentional.