I know that happens a lot. When I was in about my 5th or 6th year of wrestling, I traveled all the way to Doge City for a tourney. Being from Derby that was quite a little drive for us. Well when I got there, I so "happily" found out that I was to only have two other kids in my bracket. Well one kid scratched and the kid that I had to wrestle had only been in the practice room twice the entire season, and this was about the middle of the season. Needless to say I was dissapointed to have to wrestle such a novice wrestler just to get in a litte mat time. My point though after having said that story, is that I think that too many clubs try to have tournaments on the same day which in return lowers the number of kids. Especially if u've already been to one tourney (Derby for example) and u know how it's been run in the past, it can discourage people from returning to that touney the next year and promotes them to go to a different one the following year. Cuz I know in the past I've went to different tourneys than what my club would be goin to either because we didn't like the way one was ran the past year, or if we felt like we would have more competition at another one. Another one, which is kind of a sad one to me, is that less and less kids each year are not goin out for wrestling for whatever reason. And that can and more than likely will have a major effect on how many kids are in a bracket and if wether or not they combine brackets. But as to combining the brackets between ages has to do w/ how many kids are in a bracket. Because if u were to combine a few brackets that only had maybe a few kids in each one, the kids not only get more mat time, but they also learn a lot more than as if u were to only have 1 or 2 kids in each bracket. That's my two-cents worth anyways...I hope I helped u in some sort of way or form and not just blowin smoke in ur ears.