They were light drilling. That comprises maybe 15-20 minutes of a real practice. When you get into hard drilling, situational goes, and live goes, it isnt the same ballgame.
Light drilling is used to get warmed up. What you talk about of this "cavalier attitude" is necessary to train yourself to get tough scores on tough guys. It is the only way to get proficient at doing this.
Sure.
But what are older people looking for? I personally never cared about hitting a takedown sparring, let alone against a grappler in a grappling competition. All I ever wanted was to be able to hold my posture in the clinch and block takedowns because it made me feel like my self defense skills were better. I got to the point where I can go 100% with strangers in mma schools and block almost every shot, and those I don't block I almost always land in guard or half guard. It is enough skill that I don't have to back up from or run from people, even if they don't fear me taking them down with a shot.
Taking myself as an example, the classic weekend warrior, if I can handle amateur fighters I'm far more capable of self defense than I probably need to be.
In boxing, maybe like 10% of people care about taking a fight. Excluding the fitness only people totally from this, like 90% just want to learn how to handle themselves in self defense. Drilling, light sparring, some hard rounds of body only sparring, and maybe one or two hard spars ever are enough for that - to protect your head, keep your posture, and hide behind a jab - and for your knock out strikes to be much more dangerous. Paired with fitness training, it isn't professional fighting, but it does move you way up the curve in terms of who you can handle yourself around.
I don't see why wrestling couldn't be the same thing.
Edit: besides that, I bet there are a lot of people who used to love wrestling that feel like they can't take the falls anymore. If the culture opened to hobbyist and self defense types, I think it would broaden its appeal, make money, make people happy, help people be safe, improve their other martial arts.... just all kinds of benefits.