I use my boat for both day sailing and cruising. When I look at the overall value of the sail, the ability of a racing sail to "retire" into a life of cruising is attractive. I have owned MANY laminated plastic, and Dacron sails. When the plastic sails reach end life, they typically are a delaminated mess. Dacron sails, while they don't hold their shape as well as laminated sails do, are still perfectly fine for cruising, in fact I am sure I still have the original Dacron mains in my loft that would work just fine for daysailing. Soooo, points in favor of Dacron. On the other hand, the current methods of giving Dacron some rigidity require the application of a stiffener, that makes handling of the sail difficult, and can even risk damage to the cloth if a wrinkle is not removed carefully. If a woven material can be incorporated that provides the stiffness of impregnated Dacron, is easy to handle, and has a "lifevalue" similar to Dacron cloth, that would carry my vote going forward.