"I've only attended Dragon Con three times and have always planned my Saturdays around all of the Colonial Marines events scheduled on that day. The dinner has been one of the events I've looked forward to most. It's given me a chance to meet new people and actually sit and talk with them over a nice meal, unlike some of the other Colonial Marine events. Like the parade and the colony sweeps on Saturday, the dinner seems to be part of the Colonial Marines tradition. For what it's worth, I'd just add this, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". 'Nuff said."
Note: The above was posted in response to a discussion on FB. Now, having read through this entire thread, I would simply add that situations beyond our control may force the day or time of the dinner to be changed at some point in the future. Venue changes have had to be made out of necessity just to accommodate the number of attendees in our group. We've had the dinner at three different places each year I've attended. For my part, I'd work the dinner into my plans no matter what day or time it was planned, but until that becomes an unavoidable necessity, I'd still prefer we try to keep the traditional dinner on Saturday night as long as we possibly can.
For the record, I've attended all three Colonial Marine events (parade, sweep, and dinner, with time spent manning the Fan Table as well), each year I've attended D-Con, and wouldn't have missed any of them no matter how trashed I was at the end of the day. The dinner has been a pleasant & relaxing way to end the excitement of the day for me, and I'd like it to stay that way as long as possible.