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Hello,
I am in the delightful position of having been prophesizing for years that HM standing rigging was on the way, and that much or most of my reluctance to recommend it for almost anybody stemmed from a desire to let someone else play around with it, and work the bugs out. For many boats, yours included, I believe the way is now fairly clear. Yes, you have to worry about (i.e. prevent) chafe. Yes, UV will be something of an issue, but reports from the field are that it happens slower than we used to think, and that the rate of decay slows as the surface yarns' decay acts to shield the yarns below.
Creep is also largely addressed, at least with materials like Vectran, which has essentially no creep, and some forms of pre-stretched Spectra. With deadeyes you will in any event have lots of room for take-up for this.
So I think that your racing compatriots are indeed commendably conservative and cheap, and that is likely why they aren't switching.
A galvanized rig, fully-served, will last longer, given some maintenance, but how much longer is difficult to say.
Finally, think of this question in a historical context. About 150 years ago, people with some of those same boats were debating whether or not to switch to this newfangled, low-stretch, high-strength stuff called wire rope. It had obvious merit, but you know it was going to have problems with rusting, that a sharp turn would weaken it radically, that it was hard to work with, etc. Any material we use for rigging will have limitations, though; we just need to work out whether or not its advantages are compelling enough to outweigh those limitations.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss
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