If keeping costs down and personnel resources focused on IndyCar has been deemed the best course of action, wouldn't paring the ladder down to two steps--USF2000 and Pro Mazda--make the most sense? If the new Lights car has been tabled, why not take the opportunity to revise, revamp and modernize the ladder altogether?

If three ladder series can thrive, I'm for maintaining all three. If two are thriving and one is faltering, does it make sense to keep the third series on life support year after year? And if IndyCar management is unwilling to go forward with a new Lights car--one that would have a better chance of attracting more drivers and teams to participate, wouldn't it be smarter to massage what is working on the ladder?

With more power, bigger tires and the addition of more ovals to its calendar, Pro Mazda could become somewhat comparable to the defunct Atlantic Series that once served as the final springboard to Indy cars.

Granted, I'm not looking at the Pro Mazda cars as a perfect, like-for-like Atlantic surrogate. To be extremely clear, it would be a compromised solution, one that's far from perfect, and also has some technical challenges to solve, but with the decision taken by IndyCar management, a perfect solution doesn't exist.

If there was a way to dust off the Swift 016s, the last Atlantic chassis that was used through 2009, we might have a ray of hope. But you won't find the 016s sitting in a big warehouse primed and ready to race. You will, however, find a solid grid of Pro Mazdas in action this year, dwarfing the Lights series whenever they share the same bill.

If you stand and watch them trackside, it’s possible you'll be reminded that Lights has a mostly proud history, but like me, you might also be wondering if it's a necessary step to educate open-wheel drivers.

Sure, it’s the top training series today, but that wasn't always the case.

Before the advent of Lights (and even during its existence), Atlantics propelled the likes of Michael Andretti, Bobby Rahal, Jacques Villeneuve, Jimmy Vasser, A.J. Allmendinger, Simon Pagenaud and reigning IndyCar Series champion Ryan Hunter-Reay directly into CART or Champ Car with great effect.

With the previous flat-bottom Dallara IR07 IndyCar chassis that was used through 2011 in mind, the flat-bottom Dallara Lights car was a great fit to train drivers in a vehicle that had similar aerodynamic and handling characteristics.

But with the move to the Dallara DW12, a car that has more downforce, corners faster and requires more aggressive driving to extract ultimate speed, the current Lights car is no longer a proper fit. It has also lost a significant portion of its educational value.

The Pro Mazda car, which looks and drives more like a smaller DW12 than anything else on the Mazda ladder, has become a far better training vehicle for the next wave of IndyCar drivers.

And unlike the Lights series, one that has an un-badged engine and no manufacturer investment beyond its tire vendor, Pro Mazda receives healthy financial and promotional support from Mazda.

Thought of as a product on a shelf, Lights isn't selling domestically or internationally, and it won't get any better when the car turns 12 next year or becomes a teenager at 13. Expecting American or European drivers to flock to Lights to pilot a car that's half their age is a pipe dream.

There's no shortage of open-wheel talent in the world, but as long as the Lights series continues to be the choke point--a destination most drivers don't want to visit or can't get out of once they're there--some hard questions need to be asked about its continued existence.

From an image perspective, what does it say to prospective drivers about the IndyCar Series when Lights is so heavily under-subscribed? Projecting strength and vitality is a must for IndyCar right now, and if Indy Lights can't be fixed in a reasonable time period, it's an eyesore needs to go away.

As much as I love the idea of trick new Lights cars with turbo engines, it just might be time to put the 11-year-old cars to bed, make performance upgrades to the Pro Mazda cars and streamline the path to IndyCar.

Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, covering IndyCar and sports cars. Now in his 27th year in the sport, Pruett was an open-wheel mechanic, engineer and manager before joining SPEED. He also contributes to RACER, Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him @MarshallPruett.