Having social danced and taught dance classes in various styles for over 10 years now, I think the reason you tend to see so many dancing computer geeks has nothing to do with "mental acuity," and everything to do with:
1. We tend to be introverted, and are often drawn to dancing because it provides a highly structured way of interacting with the opposite sex.
and
2. We also tend to be obsessive -- it's how we complete lists like the OP, after all -- and thus once drawn to something, tend to have the doggedness to practice until rather good at it. Once you're good at it, a positive feedback loop ensues.
As a half decent dancer myself I think the structured part is really the key to why there are so many geeks in salsa. It starts like a way to hack the social aspect of life with a clear tutorial of how to be more confident there. And it really does work because most women are in fact interested in dancing so it acts as both a conversation starter and a shared topic for discussion. I'm not that sure that it helps for coding though. But it does help with happiness a lot.
As a side question - with all the technical talent in the salsa scene why is its web presence so ridiculously terrible? I actually haven't seen one site associated with salsa that I could qualify as "adequate".
Probably because there is no money in salsa. Many teachers, for the amount of work they do, don't earn that much money so paying for a website just isn't a priority. My teacher probably made a decent amount of money judging by the number of students she had but it was her life.
She would also regularly tell stories of her experiences. A lot of which involved salsa conferences and not getting paid because the only way many of the conferences can actually make money is by stiffing people on payment. It was quite a shocker to learn a lot about the behind-the-scene stuff.
The guy behind SalsaCrazy makes seven figures. And he (according to my sources) is not a good social dancer.
The economics of Salsa are driven by the race to the bottom when someone starts giving away classes for free. Most salsa dancers don't drink that much so expecting the bar or club to earn significant revenue from dancers is not that possible (but it depends on whether you are attracting the girls' night out crowd or the serious dancers).
The real money is made in the wedding dance preparation market. It really plays to the competitive landscape of showing off and SYTYCD. The recession has hurt the market some but most upwardly mobile couples will drop $2k for a package of twenty private lessons aimed to get them to the very important first dance as a married couple with style, confidence, and choreographed moves.
That is the secret of dance studios. Wedding couples are their fat cow.
To make money off a salsa conference is an impressive accomplishment.
That's the first I've heard of that site but I can see how it makes money. It's product-crazy. I have no doubt that some people make a lot of money but probably a lot just get by. My teacher also has mentioned how it took her many years to get to the level where she could even begin to teach full-time.
Some teachers might have their own products but usually they are still personally required. It's not unlike programmers selling their time. Many of the teachers do it because they like dancing, not running a business just like some programmers who like programming and don't like the business side. Anyway, it's a fascinating industry to me.
I think you have nailed it. Structured is key. You have a pretty good idea of what is coming. There is a protocol to asking a woman to dance (confidence but a protocol nonetheless). I think this means that I need to seek out more unstructured social environments (but part of me thinks that even the extroverts, they aren't leaving their circle-the-wagons huddle of friend in a big open party).
Also, I think geeks think they can crack the code of dancing, find the secret but then grow through experience to realize it is really dancing not pre-programmed moves (though every lead has a set of proven moves).
Maybe I need to stop thinking about this so much and just enjoy it.
1. We tend to be introverted, and are often drawn to dancing because it provides a highly structured way of interacting with the opposite sex.
and
2. We also tend to be obsessive -- it's how we complete lists like the OP, after all -- and thus once drawn to something, tend to have the doggedness to practice until rather good at it. Once you're good at it, a positive feedback loop ensues.
IMHO.