Bill,
I think you're talking about the old and the new ... or is it the scoop and the plow? Well ..... why don't you say what you mean?
The one's w 3or more votes ..
Mantus, delta, Excel, Rocna and Supreme as "new"
And the anchors w 2 or less votes ...
Fortress, Spade, SARCA, Vulcan, Super Max, AC-14, Bruce and Danforth as "old"
Dosn't fly very well however I thought you had a point at first. What is the Spade, SARCA, Vulcan and Fortress doing in the "old" column?
I think it has more to do w what people use and have on their boat. Basically all the anchors work while normally anchoring and people recomend what works .. what they have, use and are familar with. Most of us tend to "stick to our guns" and when we chose what we have we thought it best. And we tend to go on thinking it's best. Also we tend to support our clan and our things. We support what's close to us. Most of us could afford to buy most any anchor represented here but don't intend to anchor in storms and don't think a storm will "happen to them" .... we read about those hapless people but that "won't happen to me" syndrome ... and then there's the "get around to it" problem.
So there's mostly only a vocal few that have modern anchors.
As to trying to identify a group re anchor design/type ... can't be talked about without classifying the anchors as to design type.
Danforth type
Stockless type
Scoop type
Plow type
Most fall neatly into a type. But what about the SARCA and Claw? I'd say the SARCA is more of a plow than anything else and the Claws are more of a scoop. So it really boils down to scoop and plow .... and others.
If you score anchors as to type ...
15 choose Scoop
10 choose Plow
4. Choose Other
If the vote was twice as many votes for one as the other I'd say a clear preference has been made. But 2/3rds of the vote was for Plow type anchors and it's not really close to 50/50 either. I'd say a more popular choice is for Scoop types but not by an overwhelming margin.
After more looking at my lists what does stand out is that the anchors that got 4 or more votes are all Scoop types ... the Supreme, Excel and the Rocna. ALL SCOOPS. Having made that observation I'd say the Scoop type anchor is most popular. It may be a bit of a stretch but it may indicate that the Scoop anchor is considered best by a majority.
So Bill if that's what you meant you had/have a point. But many more people would need to be involved to make much hay of it.