We live in a very populated area so there are a lot of teams and a lot of good players. Many players travel over 100 miles to play for a particular team. Some of these organizations have as many as 4 teams ranging from 12YO to 19 yo. The demand is there and supply usually rises to meet the demand. Even with the economy there are still people looking for elite teams.
For a couple years my son played on 4 teams but there was no way he would play what we know as rec. He had a taste of it at 10yo and there was no way he was going back. In terms of competition and coaching rec was the lowest, Then HS, city travel and then elite.
Our only contact with US HS teams was against the LA state champions (Jesuit) when they traveled here in the summer. My son threw 6 innings against them as a 16YO and gave up 1 run. 3 of their players played for LSU the next year and graduated last year. Other than that we faced travel teams that were not related to HSs directly.