In my experience, the bad rep paintball gets isn't from serious rec players or closed minded idiots outside the sport. The real problem is the people that have played once or twice with rentals at woods fields. Those games are almost entirely military based, be it a D-Day recreation, or an escort down the Ho-Chi Minh trail. What those players take away from the game is the idea that all paintball is just the History channel brought to life. Serious rec players understand that there are other kinds of paintball, and many I know are careful to make that distinction. Its these one time ballers, and the number of people who have played once then stopped is huge, that spread the military image of paintball.
I'm not saying this military theme is bad, I personally enjoy these military recreations periodically, but tournament paintball needs to draw a distinction between itself and recballing, which is why I'm excited about X-Ball. I think very soon were going to see ESPN and other sports networks taking an interest in tournament paintball as the sport grows as a new extreme sport.
How this relates to the thread, well, paintball can die out if we let it, but I think the path tournament paintball is taking is going to ensure it stays around for a long time. And as for recballers, its either paintball or airsoft, and those airsoft pellets hurt, so I think they'll be shooting paintballs for a long time to come.