our line this year is obsessed with big nembers
6 snares 3 tenors 5 basses and 4-5 cymbals
and usually we sacrifice #s for quality and go out small but our snare tech has it stuck that we need 6 snares and anyone who is too dirty will just get a blanket shoved in thier drum

In my humble opinon, a high school setting with a relatively low number of winds, 3 is an ideal number of snares in terms of dynamics and ability to play cleanly. In college, I think that 5 snares is a more desirable number.

In my opinion I think that bigger is better. It's enjoyable playing With My fellow snare captain just me and him or our center three people , cause we can play Really awesome together. But even though the outside people don't have as much experience. There will be some moments( or even entire practices were I'm 100% Happier having 6 or 7 snares rather than three. It's louder, it looks more intense and intimidating and for every snare player added, those clean moments really get your blood going and really it is more satisfying than playing Grievous Groove clean with two people. I have always been on a big line and I love it. =]

It's a mix for me. This year we went with a 3 snare, 1 tenor, 5 bass line. And 3 of those 9 were seniors, and were will probably gain 1 person. So our line is declining. But luckily we are probably going to gain at least 1 person. But to get back on topic here, i think there are positives for having a big, or small line. Having a big line, like robotman8591 said, is cool because of the feel and look that it gives off. I totally agree with that, and think its more enjoyable having the feeling of a clean 4-6 pack of snares, rather than 2-3. But if you can't play it clean, its about worthless. I think that if you can all play it relatively clean, that the "bang" of the sound will over-power some of the dirtyness, and produce somewhat of a good snare line for high school.
On the other hand, a small line has benefits as well. Like only having 2-3 snares like our line means you can work with each other on more of a 1 on 1 situation, and learned the parts better, than say a 7 man line were some of the stragglers will have to keep up, and depending on how well they read music, could fall behind. That's not to relevant though, just giving an example. But it all narrows down to opinion. Overall, I think bigger is better. But you cant push the limits. You almost have to balance out clean/small line VS. Big, somewhat dirty line.

in high school it's hard to get more than 5 people clean, but a lot of lines go ahead and put 8 on there anyways. 7-10 is acceptable for drum corps, but not for high school. I think 3-6 is a good number for high school lines.

Hell yeah more is better. Is that even a question? lol

One thing we can't deny is that part of being a good drumline
requires a good image on top of a good, clean quality of
playing. I really don't mean to sound like a jerk, but I
don't think many people would take a drumline too seriously
if it had only 2 snares in it. I personally wouldn't...unless
they were throwing down split singles

While it is impressive to see a line of 10 throw down completely clean, I don't find it required at all. I mean honestly, Highschool should have 4-5 at the most, especially since chances are the highschool kid's can not play as clean as Drumcorp members. But just think about the sound, chances are in highschool you don't have 65 bugles all firing off as loud as they can. Trust me, it's not hard to start overplaying a marching band.

Ddragex, you honestly can't think that can you? What happens when that line comes up to you, having 3 snares, a tenor and 3 basses, and completely rocks everything clean. Still won't take them seriously?

As for the line I march in, we have 7 snares. We play our show pretty clean, so the "big" image works for us. Our band is pretty big however, with almost 200 people in it. Our snare line can play the basic stuff like rolls clean, but when it comes to harder hybrids and flam stuff we have a harder time with that.

I was speaking from a broad audience perspective. My
senior year there were 7 snares, 4 tenors, 6 basses, 4
plates, and we got a lot of attention when warming
up before football games.

This year, there's 4 snares, 3 tenors, 6 basses, and like
6 plates. The drumline is pissed. The band is like, and
i quote, "What the hell is that thing", and they get
no attention when warming up at football games.

So lets not act like the size of a drumline doesn't matter.
But i understand most high schools have 2-4 snares, so I
guess it's something that you may not have witnessed firsthand.