No big change in participation locally. Maybe a few more, but still 10 or less. Shooting it wasn't all that different. Go to the positions and shoot the things.
Yeah in the peak of Production it was the only place to play if you wanted to shoot 9 without some sort of a disadvantage. This almost certainly inflated the participation numbers.
A few locals here signed up for our match this coming weekend as Prod. We'll see how it goes. I shot a few locals using ipsc prod rules in Limited a few years ago to prep for IPSC Nats. It's not all that different. I doubt we'll see any sort of grand resurgence. Once Prod lost the monopoly as being the only minor only division it's numbers tanked. Even if all new shooters with iron sight guns go from A fudgecicle nobody but a few crayon chewers and winder likkers want to Prod now I doubt it'll move the needle much.
It's just representative of a market shift. General gun owners have little to no interest in 40. Most LEO agencies are moving away from it. Major manufacturer's like Sig aren't even making guns for it anymore.
It'll mostly just boil down to preference. They'll handle slightly different, but the shorter one shouldn't put you at any sort of disadvantage. I've recently picked up one of each to play around with.
Limited is usually the catch all for new people if you're shooting irons. We've got people who are gun club members that only shoot the various matches at our club. The uspsa match is just one of those and they don't see a benefit to joining the org.
I'd encourage you to find and shoot a full staff reset match. I can almost guarantee you'll never want to shoot a major match another way. Most of the state matches in Area 6 have gone to this model. I honestly prefer working the match in this format too. You get the same ~4 people on the stage taking care of the same things in the exact same way every time. It's efficient and offers the most consistent match to all shooters.