You are soo right. We should instead encourage these folks who are trying to learn a little more about fly fishing for steelhead to stop wasting there time and energy on the classes and just go straight to gear and bait fishing. And heck, even then it's still hard - so just hand them some trebble hooks and let them snagg the fish. Fly fishing is much too hard for those weak minded folks looking for short cuts.
Seriously, you should ask yourself 'who is taking these classes?" I think you'll find a lot of them are either completely new to fishing, trying to convert from conventional gear fishing, and\or have full time jobs and families, so time on the water is very limitted. They proberly don't have asperations to become one of your legendary NW hard core steelheaders and 99% will probably never even become reasonable good steelheaders. But what can it hurt to have more people interested in C&R and protecting wild steelhead and their environment? I bet many of those who attend those classes are voters.
Besides, are you really concerned about some cracker taking your favorite fishing hole? If you are really good, you know that by resting the water after the guy stops thrashing with his fly rod, that you can pick up the steelie that he has not been able to get his fly to. And those classes usually get on the water later than the serious fishing crowd and travel a lot slower. Either you stay ahead of them, or you quickly pass them up. And as 4Salt pointed out, the classes aren't aimed at getting into fish - if that's all the students wanted, they could spend about the same amount of money and hire the guide for a more personalized trip.

By the way, where do I find this list of the famous and 'really good' steelheaders? Apparenlty steelheading ins't about the numbers, its about impressing the right people?

Anyway, I don't mean to offend - just giving my .02 cents...