So you saying that an "extra" 2000 people in the park can make the crowds so bad that in the advice of most guide books you should get out of there by noon and high-tail it to another park or your hotel?
Considering that's at least a 5% bump on an already busy day, as much as a 10+% bump on a slower day, then I'd say yes, it is enough to recommend bailing. Considering guidebooks emphasize maximizing use of time, why would they recommend staying in a park whose attendance is inflated by 5-10% when the other three parks have their attendance deflated by 2-4%.
I still have to maintain that as out of touch as some portions of management are, they are still capable of reading an attendance figure.
Certainly, however, they can completely mis-interpret what it means.
I don't see why this is such a problem for you, Europa. 40k is a pretty busy day at MK, and that means 40k came through the turnstiles at some point, but there's not 40k in the park at a given time. Also, some of them are shopping and eating at any given time. Do you really think 10k could storm in all at once, head for the rides, and still not result in any kind of significant lines?
Regardless of how many people actually went through, its still doesn't matter, though. What mattered was that EE was a significant deciding factor for guests when they made their lodging decision, and WDW didn't get that.
They screwed up.
Geez, its not like I'm defending them. I'm just trying to look at the situation objecively...