Ballooning will automatically incur ever more intensive regulation, as long as idiots in charge of them continue to take risks with passengers lives. This is the history of aviation. Pilot crashes, kills serious numbers of pax; coroner decides pilot error was the problem; pax relatives sue for tens/hundreds of millions; insurance companies pay out, insurance premiums increase. Aviation regulator then increases the amount of regulation and rules to the nth degree in knee-jerk response to general anger. Thus it ever was, and thus it ever will be.
Safety is not something you have in mind when you take to the air in private and small aircraft. Ask your life insurance company how they stand when you commence flying in private and small aircraft. Show me the very few that don't cancel your life insurance on the spot. Ballooning is risky, and so is any flying in private and small aircraft. People do it for excitement and fun. Take away the risk and you'll lose half the clientele.