People unwilling to delve into the posters points want to boil it down to trophies. No. I think he is more talking about a lack of enthusiasm for anything/one beyond the top tier drivers.
In which case.
Cactus has always been like that. All the previous owners bent over backwords to not make the teams get huffy. Given, the last time I went was like 95, but even then it was such.
However, I would say you have a valid point about the announcer. If you listen to the youtubes, you can hear what he is describing. If the announcer is not "into it" it just ruins the excitement of the race. Did they get Richard Lake to announce (from Tucson)? He used to make it fun, and would even laugh on occasion (his laugh was contagious). Or Scott.. forget his last name. Long, long ago he worked for SIR and was sponsored by AE/Yokomo but then went to school I think to be a lawyer or something.