What six flags is doing is they're trying to attract people to come with big rides, of coure that marketing is not working all that well. I know plenty of GP that have been scared off because of bad management. If they tightened up security (but still let you take cameras on the ride[;)]) and got the trains out as fast as CF Parks with minimal screwing around by staff, and on top of that put in a new ride, I guarantee people would start coming back to SFMM. Why? People will go to six flags to ride that new ride, the GP will come back and say its great! "We got to get onto all the rides we wanted to get on in half a day! And there were no line hoppers, and I felt safe, and the park just felt really nice, except for the weather, but you can't control that, we should go again some time....." And then that person's friend will go, and new about it will spread around through the GP that its a great park again, and people will start coming back. You make your money through the GP, and even though the GP want to ride these awsome rides, they also don't want to wait an hour for what could be a 10 minute ride, or getting line hopped by a group of guys and having to wait that much longer, or getting beat up by a couple of asses. But when its safe and fun again, the people will return! And sfmm seems to be getting better at this, so, maybe they won't go bankrupt after all.
/rant
I think every park should follow Kennywood's example for maintaining woodies. If you didn't know this Kennywood replaces 10% of all the wood on ALL three of their woodeies and they give them a new coat of paint EVERY year.