John, sorry for the maybe not "lordly" comment but in Italy we have a saying: "It's not a problem how much big you have it, but the way you use it!".....
I mean, I think that first of all if you have arguments and a good structure able to tell about them efficiently that's the effective way.. Of course, if on the contrary you don't have many arguments, the impressive size is (or may be?..) an instrument to hide that lack...
By this I don't want to say at all that Pelco has no arguments and Avigilon has!.. I think anyway as well that exhibitions at the moment are definitely not the main selling channel, on the contrary! Surely you must be there, because if you are not there the market asks why.. And somehow the "size" is also a way to show/measure the status of health of a consolidated vendor. It's like for a big car or a big boat: he has it, so he should be really very rich and powerful..
Perhaps, who is in the market since longer time has also some inertial "need" to show a certain size: they have always had a huge booth, so maybe if they don't have the same now someone may think that they are less "healthy".... While who is more "young" (as Avigilon for example) can have more flexibility in this kind of message..
Just to tell to you an example, I was exhibiting in Essen last week and surprisingly Samsung was not there!... Could you imagine what I heard then among the people there.... "What? Samsung is not there? How is possible? Oh yes, they had booked the booth but after they canceled... Oh yes and I heard that they went down.... Yes, yes, I heard it as well and I heard also that they are selling... Selling? No, I heard that they are firing out 1000 persons and closing....." And several other stupid stuff like that, I definitely suppose not true....:) But all the people was trying to find (and to show they know of course...) the reason why Samsung was not there......:))
Cheers,
Simone