I'd tend to agree - certainly I've been noting for years now how there appears to be much less downtime in the parks, and certainly not the old 'dead' seasons like there used to be (like you mention, I used to go on trips in early February, mid September, or the week after New Years and could experience sections of some parks completely empty - getting on rides with no line and even riding through several times because there was noone else waiting to load).
What I'd really like to figure out is...what are all those people doing? ; The strangest part of the new crowding that I find is that the ride lines aren't much higher than before - maybe a little, but not what you'd expect from the crowds milling about. ; I've been walking around MK barely able to get through the crowds, pushed my way into Pirates or Haunted Mansion, and was surprised to find waits of 10 minutes or less. ; Judging by the walkways and stores and Main Street, you'd have expected 60-minute wait times for everything. ; Now, that said, I also go during the more crowded seasons, and not only are the sidewalks crowded, but the ride wait times are more like the 60 minute to 1 1/2 hour lengths one would expect.
The question it raises for me is whether those visitors are more profitable to Disney, or not? ; I try to look at your average first-time visiting family, that gets the discount hotel, the free dining plan add-on during the promotion, gets the length-of-stay passes, and plans out their time in the park to the second, going from ride to ride and cashing in their meal plan credits, then leaves at the end of the day passed out cold - maybe they bought a hat or shirt at the gift shop one day. ; Then you've got me - I bought into the DVC, and pay the dues, don't go during discount times, continually renew an annual pass, visit various resorts each day before hitting the parks for a nice meal at a higher-end restaurant, paying cash/credit rather than meal plan, I buy snacks, drinks, etc throughout the day, including alcoholic ones, I have dinner usually at the $$$ or $$$$ restaurants every night, with wine and desserts, again always paying cash/credit...and I'll occasionally buy gifts for friends/relatives because of my DVC or AP discounts that tend to make me more willing to spend on some trinkets. ; My typical 4-day Disney trip with a friend or one relative will ring up about $800 on my credit card - pure spending, not even including DVC cost or annual dues, or AP cost...about a $400 per person spending range, or $100 per day, just for food/drink/gifts. ; It seems to me that I'm likely a higher spender per-day than the meal-plan buyers, at least on a per person basis. ; I'd tend to believe that others like myself are quite similar - I know quite a few other DVCers and local Floridians who like to travel like I do, and often are hanging out at the nicest restaurants, ringing up bar tabs at night, and springing for extra cost tours/addons, spas, golf, etc. ; Not keeping that crowd happy, or driving them out of their regular visits, might not be the best move financially for Disney in the long run...in other words, filling the parks year-round by hawking discounts on hotels and free dining plans isn't really bringing in any more revenue than an emptier park filled with higher-spending folks. ; Sort of like the tough argument that many bar/restaurants had when smoking bans came about - supposedly instituting smoking bans would make the majority of bar visitors happier with the cleaner air, yet any bar owner could tell you without question that smokers are higher spenders - they tend to be drinkers too, and if allowed to smoke, will spend much longer amounts of time at the bar, spending money. ; Ditto casinos. ; And I'm a non-smoker, so I'm certainly not arguing from that standpoint - but I know bar owners and restaurant owners who have had to close since the smoking bans, as their highest-spending clientele was pushed out in favor of lower-spending non-smoking clientele...I always wondered why a bar or restaurant cannot just declare themselves a smoking facility, but a big skull and crossbones on the building and signs, and let non-smokers just avoid that place!
I think the fine line for Disney is how to cater to new visitors and first-timers without losing their long-termers - with the amount many of us tend to spend, and due to our long-time affinity for Disney and memories from our childhoods we likely do much more promotion for Disney (sites like this as an example), keeping us wanting to go to the parks would seem to be a very important task. ; The whole point of bringing in first-timers, arguably, is to convert them to second-timers and multi-timers!