i come from a small line (2 snares, 1 tenor, 4 bass, 2 plates, 2 pit) and our snares play almost perfectly together

do you think that more than 2 is better, or worse?

because even if you have a HUGE band, 2 snares can play as loud as they want and be heard just fine (most of the time lol)

More is much, much, better to me. But more also has to be very clean or else you're wasting everyone's time. But a bigger line is more impressive visually as well as sound-wise. Any stick tricks or backsticking or drumhopping looks so much better if it involves a bigger line.

JimmyNoobtron (haha) is right. A larger line (like the 9-15 man snare lines in DCI div I) is way more impressive if and ONLY if they are clean visually and musically. If they're not it's kind of annoying. I'm a solo tenor player but there's 4 snares and 4 basses and 9 pit in our line. Visuals and things like that work better with a bigger line, but we're not as clean as we'd like to be. When my co-captain and I play together, it's clean as a whistle, but the visuals look stupid with just the two of us. It's all a matter of how clean you can get with more people.

Two guys can be heard over a fairly large band, but only if they're playing loudly. By adding some bodies to the line, you get a depth or strength of sound that allows the line to balance with the band when individuals are playing at a more comfortable volume. By playing at a more controlled level, sound quality from the line as a whole should be noticeably better.

Playing clean is imperative. Our line only has 3 snares and 1 tenor, so the parts must sound strong enough to be heard but the line itself is clean

I'm more inclined to a watered-down, bigger drumline, if that's an option. I'd rather see more kids getting the opportunity to play drums and have fun and what not than to have 3 snares sound cleaner than Phantom Regiment. Might I add that the last part is nearly impossible.

Time adds a lot to. My line this year had two (of 7) returning snares, 1 (of 6) returning quads, and two (of 6) returning basses. You can imagine how wonderful it sounded at the beginning of the season. Now, it's pretty good. Not perfect, but satisfactory. A lot of schools will cut kids quickly without giving them time to play, as a result having lines with 10 members and pits with 1520349320984; a little overestimating, but you get my point.

But, large lines aren't always an option.

We've got 1 tenor (me), 1 snare, 1 cymbal, and 2 bass. We're a small 2A drumline, but I prefer this at times. For 1, I don't have to worry about being perfectly together with someone else who is playing the same instrument as I am. That and when you're the only person playing your instrument you can improvise whenever you want and you can mess up and act like it was right and no one will ever know. We don't get to do some more impressive things, but we get the advantage of not having to try and be clean like a larger line would have to.

That being said, there is something awesome about 8 snares playing some insane piece of music all completely in time and together.

I think people are losing the idea of balance. More doesn't always mean better. A good guide line that most drumlines will or should use is 3 snares to 1 tenor, because tenors tuned right and playing at the right level can outplay even 2 snare drummers. That's why with most Div. 1 Corps you have 9-10 snares and maybe 5-6 tenors.

Modern high-tuned snare drums are producing such a thin tone that they're losing volume. If you want to prove this, take a free-floater tuned with a high tension head and then take a field drum that would have been used 30 years ago with a strong mylar head tuned to a normal field drum timbre(tone color) and hear the difference.

There's also other aspects that have been talked about such as size of the band, number of people in the drumline, etc.

The more balanced you have a drumline, the better it will sound and the more MUSICAL it can become.