I’ll give you some feedback on one thing. I coach a master’s session 2 times a week, 4 lanes of a 6 lane pool for 1 hour, roughly 16-20 per session. One of the things I like to do is atleast in engage with each athlete once a session. My fastest swimmers I don’t give alot of “feedback”, it’s more dialogue on how the set is going. My moderate to “slow” swimmers is where I really help fine tune the kick position, the arm entry, etc. But even then, many times just getting 1 piece of advice can really be “enough” to make you think and also adequate. Like Jason said or I believe it was Jason above, one of the best things I like about masters is not the coaching, but the commaraderie within the lanes for the swimmers. Pushing each other to get better, knowing what person should lead off, who should go last, etc. Now that can be tough on “form” because sometimes there is an intimidation and “just get to the wall” mentality where you say the hell with form. But I think if you find a good master’s group that can provide feedback and a good workout- it’s easily worth whatever entry fee you pay.
Now obviously that can be much harder when you have 50 guys in a 8-12 lane pool, 5 to a lane, etc and you have 75 min swim set. You can get “lost”, but for my style of coaching I’m a “small group” style that fits perfectly in a 4-6 lane pool, where I can engage each individual person. Not saying it’s bad to coach a 50 person, 12 lane master’s group, that just makes it harder with the volume…I’m also TERRIBLE with names, and the thought of engaging and knowing that many people, hurts my brain.
Good luck with your search and progress.