It is you who seems to be making the rather bizarre claim that just entering lots of people (or teams) in an event is some sort of statistical route to success because actually being good at that event doesn’t really count for much in terms of winning. This is patently not how competitive sport works.
I'm not sure why you're so resistant to this idea, nor why you keep representing it as a dichotomy between 'more entrants' and 'being better'. By arguing that entering more teams is an advantage, I am not claiming that the quality of teams is irrelevant. The better the team, the more chance it has of winning. This is obvious. But, imagine the two following scenarios:
Scenario A - Countries A, B, C, D all enter one team each, their best team.
Scenario B - Countries A, B and C all enter their best team. Country D enters their best 15 teams.
Now, in which scenario is country D more likely to win gold? In Scenario B, they're almost guaranteed to have a team in the final, and then, even if it is not the better team, once there it always has a chance of winning on the day. And it's not like the difference in quality between, for example, Germany's best basketball team and the USA's fourth best basketball team is equivalent to the difference between a Premiership club and a pub side.
That's all that's being argued here. Having more entrants gives you more chance of winning. It obviously doesn't guarantee it.
I am essentially agreeing with Bluegens analysis above. That is what I am referring to here when disputing those (Oni and Caf) who seem to be arguing that the US specifically is somehow at a great disadvantage because of the participation limitations in individual events
That's not what I said, though. I pointed out that it would benefit other countries as well. Any country or group of countries who are dominant in a particular sport would benefit from having the caps removed. Rowing's an obvious one, since it's one that limits entrants to one per country. The top rowing countries, like Britain, Australia and Hungary would be able to get two of three medals in the same events, which now they can't. Allowing a third entrant in badminton would help China get an extra bronze or two. It would benefit any country that has more Olympic quality competitors than they are currently allowed to submit.
Like I said, overall, I think it would add a few medals to the US' count.