These continental quotas do help in development of the sport. You can't expect them to become super competitive in one cycle, but facts don't lie.
I mean, Angola had like 10 boats in the 470 event they hosted. For reference, Croatia is the current Olympic champion in this category, and yet at the moment we literally have nobody competing in 470 (men or women), as the winning crew has split. Rising interest in Angola can only be attributed to them competing in 2016.
Same goes for Oceania. In 2016 only Cook islands attmpted (and succeeded) in getting Oceanian spots. Now we have sailors from American Samoa, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Samoa. 300% increase in participation of the Oceanian island nations!