Man, I may be in the minority here, but I find recreation.gov to be one of the very few excellent government websites. We use it every summer for whitewater rafting and camping reservations. You can disagree with how permits/reservations are offered (e.g., lottery, first-come, etc.), but none of those decisions are made by BAH. They were given a task and, unlike so many government contractors, did it very well and relatively rapidly. The fee structure can be changed, but whatever the magic was, I wish it were repeated throughout government at every level.

I think the biggest issue with recreation.gov is that so very many people are desperate to use public lands. Population levels in the western US have exploded in the last twenty years and we've developed almost no additional recreation opportunities. For so long as that's true, the scarcity and price problems are only going to increase. But at least we have a well-functioning website with which to tackle the problem.