IMO you can look at Martial Arts systems/styles in two ways, one system will teach you techniques, "he does this, you do that" type of thinking, the other system will teach you a general idea or concept like "constant forward pressure", "eat his space", "attack his COM". The technique way, IMO, in the long run doesn't work as well for the average guy with limited amounts of time to train, there are too many variables to think about if your technique fails when the other guy did not conform to what you need to make the technique work, plus things happen too fast in a self defense situation to use specific techniques. Conceptual way applies to a wide variety of situations, for example, eating someone's space (crowding them) takes away some of their tools, as most people need space to strike at you. In WC we train at this range so that we can use this advantage in our favor. Attacking COM teaches us to keep the other guy off balance, and to maintain proper distance to utilize what we learn in WC generally. WC also teaches us good body mechanics, how to hit hard, be rooted while we are mobile and a general strategy of attack (defense is built into the attack), things all good fighters need to have. The flaws happen when we humans apply the training, as when the elements of timing, distancing, fear are thrown in, all sorts of problems can come up.
Sometimes in training, we will train some techniques against various types of attacks to bring alive the training from a non contact situation, so the students have a general idea about distance and timing, but the key thing is we are offensive fighters, with the basic idea to hit the opponent into submission, but there are other abilities that kick in when the hitting doesn't go as planned (which is usually the case in SD situations). What I really appreciate about WC is that the training instills the idea of adapting quickly and changing when change is needed. For competitions, fighters will need more technique and a higher intensity level of training, as they are comparing themselves with others that are conditioned and aware of what the other guy's strengths and weakness are. I for one don't feel the need to compete, other's are different. If that is what you want to do, then I would recommend that you don't take up Wing Chun, rather MMA/Boxing/MT may be what you are looking for.
I found a good article about this here,
http://redrebelmartialarts.blogspot....ok-at-old.html , from Adam Willis's website.
Good luck with the get together
James