So Matt, the topic really is analytics and NOT Aimpoint.
As a fan, how has analytics made baseball more enjoyable to watch?
As a player and a fan, how has analytics made golf more enjoyable? No more risk taking because the data says don't do it? Play it safe and hit it here rather than risk a better angle?
Is the NFL anymore exciting because the first ten plays are drawn up pre-game based on analytics and thus set in stone? Is it more entertaining because no team fakes a punt anymore?
Analytics are good because knowledge is good? Nope. They are boring because they suck the life out of all they inform.
You keep talking about sports as if they are limited by analytics. Analytics tell us as much about
when faking a punt is a good strategy as about when it's not. Analytics tell us as much about
when stealing a base is worthwhile as much as it tells us when it's not.
In fact, many of the boring bits are not because the analytics suggest they should be that way, but in spite of them. There is a lot of research into why coaches and players
regularly use strategies that are suboptimal. Here's
an article on why the data suggest there should be more trick plays, not less. Here's one on
why penalty kicks should be taken low and straight, while most pros aim for a corner.
The reason why most coaches and players often choose these suboptimal strategies is simply that the punishment for failure is asymmetric to the benefits of success. That is, the fan outrage at losing a playoff game due to a fake punt will likely end a coaching career, when just always playing it safe is entirely defensible.
Nate Sliver goes into the concept of game theory-optimal strategies in
his most recent book, and that concept -- one of quasi-randomly choosing different strategy a certain percentage of the time -- is what most people miss about how analytics
should work. A good explanation of this is
the classic "battle of the sexes" game, which demonstrates the optimal utility is to choose one strategy 2/3's of the time, and the other 1/3 of the time.
Beyond this, yes, sometimes analytics show weaknesses in games by demonstrating dominant strategies that make the game less fun. The fact remains, that the way to fix these problems is
to change the games. I don't lament the bomb and gouge problem golf has because Mark Broadie did a bunch of statistical research, I lament it because the USGA allowed driver heads to become so forgiving and optimized that it genuinely didn't matter where you hit the ball... which is actually what lead to bomb and gouge.