I will say that national does not make it easy to be the leader of a unit - at all.
They should be more worried about program than about membership. Lately they’ve been trying, but not hard enough. That huge camping facility in WV is a money pit. Bechtel? They are so massively in hock out there.
They loosened up the shooting sports program in terms of what’s permissible, but then locked events down to council run events only.
As for girls being in the program. I was doing that a decade ago out of necessity. Little female sibs were showing up to Pack meetings in large numbers. I formed them into dens and put them in the program. Got huge, huge blowback. Now its policy.
National hands its jobs out to politically connected people who are rich. They don’t hand them to people qualified to do the job.
It’s still the best program available.
I, too, have seen and heard of the successful integration of girls in Cubs. Not a Cub leader myself, I can't speak to the problems or non-problems that causes.
Of course, lost in all of this is that BSA explicitly called for separate Troops and quarters on trips in that 10-14 bracket. It's not full integration like the "OMG, THE BSA WANTS THEM SLEEPING IN THE SAME TENT" ignoramus class often pontificating on this topic. Naturally, wariness is prudent since we can see the camel's nose. On that front, I *do* believe the 10-14 age bracket is where lots of physical things happen, and keeping the boys and girls separate can make a lot of sense. But let's cross that bridge when it's built.
Agreed, with apologies to Churchill, BSA remains the worst program for the formation of young men, except for all the others.