This is personally my opinion for Great America specifically, I think not just family coasters but in general moving back to that Family Friendly/Disney-like atmosphere that the park started with is the best route to go. Many coaster enthusiasts would disagree but honestly, that would really benefit that park because like you said: it would encourage people to go to the local park instead of going to Disney or Universal. And also that's how it started too, I really don't want Demon or the Water Flumes to be removed for a B&M Dive coaster with 16 inversions to become the next Magic Mountain or Great Adventure because Six Flags has done enough damage to the park in both theming and what Marriott started. I think going back to that route alongside adding more family friendly attractions can give Great America a chance to compete once again
SFGAm’s top coasters are pretty decent as is so they definitely would benefit from more family coasters. A renovation of Whizzer would also be pretty cool.
With Magnum over 30 and Superman at Magic Mountain is over 20. Vekoma, Zamperla, and maybe Premier and Intamin can replace the older Arrow, Schwarzkopf, and gen 1 Vekoma loopers in addition to family rides fairly cost-effectively. But what about the Magnum's and Millennium Force's of the world, could we see coasters over 200ft tall go extinct due to being too cost prohibitive for most parks to invest in or replace their existing Arrow, Morgan, B&M, and Intamin ones when the time comes? Will parks fork over the money to simply retrack them so they can save on replacing the supports (but even those might need to go. See: Fury 325), or what?
From what I know, coasters over 200ft also bring in a lot of crowds most of the time, so they definitely wouldn’t go extinct anytime soon. Retracking is definitely a possibility, but some parks might think hypercoasters are worth the high cost.
