Why do you think there were so many stuck vehicles?
I pride myself on understanding my situation and self-recovery. Be it in climbing, alpinism, backcountry snow camping, and (now) 4x4ing, I like to know that I can get myself out of the most likely situations I'll encounter.
Until I have the recovery gear necessary to self-recover, I won't be going out alone in anything questionable. Until I'm prepared. I fear that many of those people who get stuck are unprepared to rescue themselves, be it ignorance, lack of equipment, unclear limits, overconfidence, etc. that's driving the poor decision making.
That's half the point of why I'm going on this group trip: the risks are greatly reduced because there are so many well prepared and knowledgeable people, my naietivity (sp?) is compensated for and will (hopefully) keep me from doing something terribly wrong.
Educating the public 4x4 community seems like a win-win for everybody; emergency services aren't taxed with preventable calls and the rescuee saves a massive tow bill, but there's a lot of challenges and even then it often doesn't work as intended when applied to other activities.
So, to reask and add to the original question: why do you think so many people get stuck and how do you think we could educate people (as an organized group) to prevent it from happening as often?