Sorry I dont agree with this. Even though there ain't many penholders around, the ones at the top like Wang Hao and Xu Xin are still competitve. The reason why there are so few penholders are:
1. Traditional penhold with 1 side is not suitable for moderm table tennis, Transfer from traditional Penhold to penhold with RBH is very hard due to the habbit of using traditional backhand.
2. Penhold with RBH is harder to learn than SH. The risk of failure after long time learning penhold put off many young players.
3. Good penhold coaches who can teach you RBH are very rare. Only some in China but not much anywhere else. This is why you no longer see penholder in Korea and Japan, as they don't have good coach for RBH.
However, I still believe Penhold with RBH is probably the most powerful holding if a player can take the challege of learning it. Wang Hao has better backhand than most SH players in the world. Xu Xi's forhand is a dream. Play Penhold with RBH is very cool for amatures too.
Its okay if you don't agree. Maybe if I said higher level is a level that the forum members here will achieve, not levels of 2 penholders out of thousands in China can achieve.
And I do believe penholder has been doing outstanding to occuply 2008, 2004, 1996, 1988 Olympics compared to SH of 2012, 2000.
But the future is different. Xu Xin (best Cpen for 2016/2020) might not even make it to the Olympics.
1) RBH is incorrect, it is called RPB -> reverse penhold backhand. TPB still has it advantages - watch Ma Lin and Xu Xin, and other cpen players. Changing from RPB to TPB is not a problem in the world top level (since you are comparing with the best 2 CPen in the world)
2) Penhold with RPB is not harder to learn than SH(not sure why you say it is.....), it is the same when you start from 6 or 8 years old. Risk of failure is equal between any styles or grip - the best player will move up the ladder, the weaker ones will be filtered out. To become the best player, one needs to be allround, and for Cpen to be allround, it requires outstanding footworks. So that is the main failure part for Cpen, and another token, solid Backhand play (also a reason for Ma Long's failure, so this isnt just a Cpen problem)
3) Many penhold coaches chooses to teach Shakehand, due to it being more difficult to train a Cpen player that can compete in the top. As Cpen requires more footwork and body. Hence the life span of penholders are shorter than SH players - go and look in the past 20 years and see how many Cpen players can still compete in the top 3 at age 30. Its a sad thing to be honest. Ma Lin for example, has slowed down so much after the age of 28. Speed glue ban also hurt him, as now he needs to generate more power from his body etc.
As a Cpen player, I would love Cpen to be alive. But as a coach, SH is more superior in almost all aspect where Cpen has advantages.
In the levels of players I coach in, I can train SH players more than enough. And I reckon for me to do it in Cpen, will not be a wise move. There is even a saying in China that Chiense are just better with Cpen because we use chopsticks.
Yes, for fun, go Cpen (as I said), be different, it can be to your advantage against your club mates.
OP can decide what he wants, but most important - have a coach that can teach you how to train for it.