I'm with
@ATLDave - it sounds an awful lot like you're trying to blend a traditional precision game into an action game, where is already a lot of competition. There are plenty of Precision Rifle games and plenty of Action Shooting games out there.
I played Silhouette a bit in the past, if I were retired and there were a club an hour or less from me with regular matches, I'd play again, but since I'm about 25yrs from that, and a lot more than an hour drive, I don't think it'll happen.
The silliness in ANY effort to "popularize" sports like this, is the impossibility of simplification. Many people don't compete because they don't believe they can succeed (maybe winning is out of reach, but shooting well and placing well is success for many folks). It seems like the OP feels a certain combination of characteristics is what drives a perceived low impression of potential success - the distances and the sizes of the target make it hard to shoot quickly, so moving them closer would make them easier to shoot quickly, such then a time component and "action" could be a part of the game... It is NEVER easy to win in any developed competition - the guys who regularly win because they regularly shoot really small groups take just as much skill as the guys who regularly win because they regularly shoot really fast - and vice versa. Winning takes gear and skill, gear takes money, skill takes time, experience, and practice - and practice also takes money... No matter what rule set you use, there's no way to ensure success for beginners unless you develop specific beginner-friendly classes and stages where they all compete against eachother only, effectively giving out participation awards... The participation awards the beginners SHOULD earn is the range time and line time learning from the experienced shooters, not some "newbie class winner's trophy."
So say you make those changes to make Silhouette less about precision, more about speed...
The guys who were good at transitioning targets and making impacts on smaller, farther targets will still be good at transitioning, so you likely won't see a big shift in the rankings. You'll see more ties, because you'll have less dispersion when more people make higher percentages of hits. You still won't pick up any of the true action shooters, because true action shooters will still be bored by your game because it's still not an action game, it's just a really easy "static speed stage." You're not moving your feet, the targets are big and close enough to be shot quickly, so now it's a race, not an impact based score. You will, however, lose some of your more ardent precision shooters, who feel the new targets are too easy to hit, and they'll get frustrated when so many guys clean the banks... So then the rules will have to evolve to incorporate the SPEED into the scoring, which drives more towards action games - and again, your fixed firing line range will have to evolve to a dynamic firing line, otherwise your evolved speed/action game will just be the most boring action game on the block...
If silhouette isn't dying off, then it's only because it never has been hugely popular - as it certainly isn't popular. I'm sure there are clubs in certain parts of the country still going strong, but most of the clubs I shot with a decade ago aren't running any longer, and I sure don't see much growth in popularity.
Fixed firing line, known distance, precision shooting sports are not growing, and likely never will again. People seem to like to move and shoot, they like to have speed AND precision aspects, multiple stages and stages of varied types. Action pistol sports, 3 gun, and precision rifle sports are growing. Single skill games like Trap and skeet, bench rest, F-class, Bullseye, Highpower/Service Rifle, 3/4 Position, Silhouette, etc, they don't have the appeal, and likely never again will find an era where they gain favor. It's not an uncommon trend: if we look at athletics, marathons don't fill their races, but mud/obstacle runs sell out. 3D archery and the Total Archery Challenges continue to grow, whereas spots games as waning. Traditional martial arts and boxing associations have lost competitors, whereas mixed martial arts "leagues" are thriving. People like variability in the games, and are more easily adoptive of multi-aspect games (speed AND precision) rather than single challenge games.
Some shooting sports have done "ok" by adding "base class" divisions - where there are specific firearm and optics models allowed based on a general rule of thumb for price point and quality. The headache there is policing the division for modifications, and of course, it does leave the door open to a salty mid-level competitor to sweep the base division by choosing to shoot base qualifying equipment instead of Open gear.
Marketing/advertising, organized operation, and sustained positive culture is what keeps clubs and sports alive. If young newbies come in and get cold shoulders from 60yr old men, they won't come back. If folks don't hear about shooting opportunities, they can't come try them the game the first time. If they come to their first match, stand around bored for 4 hours, and shoot for 2min, they won't come back. If you can get folks on site, get them in the game, and ensure they have a good experience, they really won't mind how many targets they miss. We have a couple guys in our precision rifle club near me which occupy the bottom spots of every match they shoot, missing 80% or more of the targets. But they have a blast every time, and they're a blast to have at the matches. The shooting challenges entertain them, the people are great to be around (squadding is a great aspect of precision rifle games), and there's a high level of involvement throughout the day (NOT hanging/painting/pasting/shagging targets), so it's a great social opportunity which involves a great shooting challenge... "Success" is a factor of perception...