So if I'm understanding you correctly? Most people see nothing and simply lie about their experience to get noticed? And the only way to get noticed is if they "conform" to Bigfoot mythology? If this is your hypothesis then I see one glaring problem with it. People report seeing all sorts of strange things, such as werewolves, thunderbirds, mothmen, the Jersey devil, etc. Why would seeing a large hairy monster with a tail and pointy ears lessen their exposure?
And why is it that places like North Dakota have five sightings and places like Washington and Oregon have thousands? If people are simply participating in mythology surely a couple of thousand acres of woodland will suffice. They don't need the whole western wilderness to participate correct? I mean Finding Bigfoot and Jack's links commercials are beamed into every household in America. So this must mean then that people in Oregon and Washington are more prolific liars than people in the mid west.
I'm not convinced in the least that most reports are simply people spinning a yarn.
I agree with that, most species discovered are very small and certainly represented by closely related species we do know about. But I could be wrong but I see the fossil record as much more of a crap shoot. Many species from the fossil record are represented simply by teeth or small bone fragments. Hopefully there are still many creatures from the Pleistocene yet waiting to be discovered. (Whether or not Sasquatch is real or ever was real)