Rambler, good username by the way. After reading your post the term begrudger springs to mind. Like another poster said, list us visible solutions to the €10 development charge and I'm sure we'll be all ears. What other way can the airport say open and run properly with a charge of this sort, they do not receive large amounts from the government to dig themselves out of holes.
Knowing the roads around Knock this whole cheaper flying out of Dublin from Westport is a silly argument. It takes 45 minutes from Westport to Knock (55k) and 3.5 hours from Westport to Dublin airport (260k). So when you factor in the additional 205k in petrol, tolls and most importantly time (which is most valuable to me) your telling me it's cheaper to fly from Dublin, I'm sorry I've done the calculations on numerous occasions and Knock simply works out better. Just think logically for a minute Rambler, in a return trip how much is 5 hours of your time worth to you, then put on the 410k in petrol (bear in mind fuel is not cheap these days) plus the tolls plus the godforsaken thought of that long drive for what might be a weekend at home. I'm laughing now about your remark that it's cheaper to fly out of Dublin/Shannon because of the €10 development charge! :-)
Honestly, if this story is genuine about lads from Westport, it's more to do with the timing of flights than the price flying from Knock. Without going overboard on how good Knock is, as I know it has it's downsides, it is a reasonable airport to fly out off.