I've got a new perspective on the permit system having returned from Coyote Gulch with a group of scouts.
I did the Subway several years ago, which was a permit only trip and had tried for several years previous to that to get a permit. With the experience of trying and not succeeding to get a permit after several attempts left me with feeling of not liking permits, that it was too bureaucratic. I took a group of boys to Coyote Gulch April 10-12 (TR coming soon) and based on many of the comments here I put the fear of an excruciating, slow, painful death in their head should there be any behavior that would be annoying or noticeable to anyone else there. I was very pleased with their behavior, we had fun, did some great hiking & exploring and in my opinion were unnoticed by anyone.After spending a night at Lobo Arch right in the middle of the cove where the river bends, I've got a new perspective on permits. There was literally a family reunion right next to us. 10+ kids under the age of 10, with at least 12 or more adults. They had fires, they were doing shadow puppet shows on the wall, and were still doing "echo" until 10:00 PM when I fell asleep. Fortunately there were cooler heads in my group so I didn't go and say something that would have started a fight because I was livid.
Having had a few days to think about it and read all the comments I have come to the conclusion that no permit would stop such awful, self centered behavior. That's a reflection of who they are and unfortunately self centered people are found everywhere. In my opinion, large groups of people tend to foster bad behavior, a kind of herd mentality seems to set in.
So the best we can do is to provide training, have minimum standards of training that people must pass and let people act how they will.
While I abhor the idea of big brother monitoring anything I do, I do like the license idea and having a minimum training that one must pass to have a license. Like one can have several different endorsements on their drivers license, one could have different endorsements on their "Wilderness License," allowing them access to certain locales that wouldn't be open to others.
The BSA does something similar to this. There are on line trainings that a leader must pass to do certain activities. They're very basic, but I believe the thinking is if people hear the right things enough times, they'll act accordingly, and really that's all we can hope for.
I need my instant gratification! Hehe. To be honest, I've never gone through with a Yellowstone permit request until this year, largely because it seemed like too much of a PIA. I have my application in now though - shooting for some sites on Yellowstone Lake in late Aug/early Sept. We'll see how it goes! 
Just messin with ya. I know how excited you are to get the new boat out on the lake.
