I think from a marketing perspective the slide brook lift has some significant value. For actual skiing, it’s of little use. That being said, in the deal with the forest service to install the lift, they agreed not to put trails/lifts in slide brook and that has preserved it as a great sidecountry tree skiing area.
pf-in addition to the operational challenges you mentioned, the lift traverses some valleys so there are spots where the chairs are really high off the ground making any evacuation a nightmare. It’s also 2 miles long. Some years ago they stopped running the lift if temps are below 5f, now 10f. Many complain about that, but imho, that is wise. I’ve been stuck up there in the cold and while it was only 10 minutes or so, it felt like eternity. If there is a problem on an extremely cold day it would be a dangerous situation.