Personnel opinion is that it will end up like skiing, DH being normal and a few doing XC, at least in the UK. There seems to be an anti work ethic in UK sport.
I think that is just rubbish. And I dunno where you get the wacky idea that there is an "anti-work ethic in UK sport" from?
If you look at the USA, in quite a few places it is a bit like this, with DH being normal, because they have lifts and all that stuff, and a culture of shuttling other trails, and riders who say "I prefer downhill, I don't want to ride uphill, as it tires me out for the downhill sections", whilst really meaning "I'm too unfit to ride the uphills".
But in the UK, the terrain just isn't suited to it – there are too many trails (way way more trails than in the USA), so people are spread out, meaning it isn't obvious which ones to uplift, secondly, in most places the hills aren't that big, so the downhills are relatively short, meaning to get a decent ride in, you need to go uphill as well to get to the next bit of downhill.
I reckon people get this idea, because they pass a lot of people walking whilst riding on the uphill. But if you think about it, you are only going to pass people who are walking (or at least you will pass far more of them than you will people riding), because of your relative speed being different.
I pushed up a hill the other day, although I think it was mainly lack of bike control skill – I couldn't get it so it had traction at the back yet kept the front wheel down. It was jolly steep though, hard to walk up.
Joe