Climbing up on the soapbox...
This is a fascinating discussion. On one hand you have proponents of allowing the players to use any legal bat. These people are decried as egotists who only care about winning tournaments and not "correctly" developing players. Then there are those who say, The only way to "correctly" prepare someone to play high school ball is by having them swing a drop 3 bat when they are in middle school.
I have been around baseball for longer than some of you have been alive and I have never seen a baseball coach or parent that did not want what was best for their players/children. "The best" is a matter of opinion and we have grown into a baseball nation where if you don't like an opinion you can find another team, another coach, private lessons, group lessons heck some people move their families to get what they believe is the "best" instruction. We debate equipment, strategy, coaches motives, intent and attempt to further our world baseball view.
In the Dominican kids love baseball and on a trip there I saw kids in one of the batey's (Impoverished communities that work the sugar plantations) playing on any large flat patch of ground. These fields had rocks, clumps of weeds, holes but they didn't care...they just want to play baseball. They had smiles from ear to ear and loved the game and did not care about drop 2 or 3 or 5 or 8 because they were hitting with a piece of 2x2 from a church construction site hitting rolled up duct tape. Next time back I took a few old baseballs and a couple of real bats (the first any of them had ever seen)...the first hit went further that any they had made with the 2x2 and flew into the thorns. Outfielder never checked up ran headfirst into the thorns and came out with blood trickling from multiple cuts, the ball held high and smiling as cheers erupted from the others. In the cities in the Dominican they have baseball cathedrals and practice 8 hours a day but out there the game is still a game,
Do I have an opinion? Sure...do away with metal and have everyone use wood. From the time they can pick up a bat on they are training to swing just like the pros (My apology to Easton, Marucci, DeMarini etc.)
Love your kids, teach them to have fun and treasure the opportunity to play. Enjoy the brief season when they play this amazing game because it will be over in a blink. Finally do what you believe will help them become the best people they can be. In the end your job is not to create awesome baseball players but awesome people...
Climbing off the soapbox...flips bat...drops microphone...