I think it's funny when the "anti-stampede" people come out of the woodwork!! It's all good, everyone is entitled to their opinion.
But don't rain on my parade, because there's a lot of worse things half a million people could be doing. It's something fun to do if you want to do it and that's about it really.
For me, it's a chance to do something I don't get to do often. There's neat things, like the tornado potato for instance!

Or the superdogs, the rodeo, the indian village, goofy rides, haunted houses, all kinds of animals, torpedos and tanks, and even get recruited by the RCMP! It's really just simple fun, can cost $15 to get in and you don't really need to pay anything after that (except for $3.50 for a tornado potato that is). But to each their own!