You are fortunate in your diocese.
Here in the New Orleans area there are no Latin masses in parish churches- at least not to my knowledge. I remember hearing about ONE, but I'm not sure that was ever true.
The general feeling at the parish where our children attend school is that you ARE schismatic if you attend Latin mass instead of the regular mass at parish church.
The tiny church that offers the traditional Latin mass is on the outskirts of the city, not easy to get to but it's filled every Sunday.It is the Society of St Pius- that is the only option here. Why this is so I do not know; but a very old, traditonally Catholic city like New Orleans has a LARGE number of of Catholics who would attend Latin mass if their parish churches offered it-and they would not made to feel like schismatics doing so.
Would the entire parish? Probably not. But neither would an entire parish attend mass in any number of foreign languages. Why do numbers matter? Are five worshippers not worth the priests time? Does it have to be (x) number in the pews before any mass is said at all?
You make an important point with the 'rock start' analogy.
When the priest faces the altar, not the congregation, he is leading his congregation in worship- facing God.
The lack of 'sense of the sacred' and the feeling of mystery and awe is what we lost.
Some say that is good- that God shouldn't be mysterious, that we should not be in awe, but as comfortable as if he were on our couch having coffee. And, certainly , one can worship God anywhere. One place is as good as another. Church should be as familiar as any other place you go.
Those are the arguments for increasingly secularized religion. And they have worked.
Fewer people are in church nowadays. There is no special feeling of stepping out of everyday life and into the presence of God by connecting with an age-old ritual. Without that feeling you might as well stay home and talk to God while you listen to the radio.
Or say your prayers in Latin and recite your rosary. Which many are doing. And so churches are empty.