First off, sponsons are nothing new; they've been around for hundreds of years. The fact that they never caught on as a viable aid to kayaking is pretty stong testimony to their lack of usefulness. Even the kayak cultures rejected the idea. The Inuit and Aleut had sealskin hunting floats, so they could easily have made sponsons if they had any use for them, but they didn't. instead, they relied on their skill.

The fact that you've used them in two meter swells proves what? On rolling water, a paddle float works fine, too. Try your sponsons in two meter breaking seas and see how well they work. The waves will flip your boat in a heartbeat. Try bracing into big breaking waves with sponsons attached and see how well they work. The most viable option in those conditions is strong skills, specifically the ability to brace, scull and roll. Barring that, a re-enter and roll is about the only self rescue that has a prayer of succeeding.

FWIW, I am anything but techno-phobic. If sponsons really offered any advantages, I'd use them. The simple fact is that once you're past the beginner stage, they have little utility other than as fishing floats (a perfectly legitimate use).

Unless you're willing to equip all of your boats and all of the boats belonging to your paddling partners with the required rigging, they have little utility on group trips. Since you apparently have a rental fleet or something, you have that level of control. The vast majority of paddlers don't.

There's no way in hell that I would paddle with deflated sponsons dragging in the water, just in case a freak storm comes up. What a ridiculous concept! If I were to have to exit my boat in an emergency, I would be back in the cockpit after a re-enter and roll before you'd get your first sponson inflated. Who's safer in that situation?

As for using them to assist an injured paddler, yeah, they'll probably work as long as the paddler can hold themselves upright. If you're dealing with someone who's truly incapacitated and has lost that ability, sponsons aren't likely to do the job, are they? An assisted tow is the only way to go.

Perhaps your arguments would be better received if you were preaching to a group of neophytes, but that's not the audience here. Speaking for myself, I have no need for sponsons as a safety device.