Trick or Treating: Out of style?

I wasn't in London for Halloween this year, so I am writing this completely from an outsider/onlooker's point of view, however, I cannot help having the slight feeling that there weren't as many greedy little children running about on the streets, dressed in unconvincing costumes, getting as many sweets from generous neighbours as they can get their hands on.
In the vastly child-populated area of East Sheen, my friend only received 3 batches of trick-or-treaters and another no more than 5. Lucy also received very few knocking kids and proceeded to eat all of the remaining sweets (fatty...).
There is a well known rule in the annual trick-or-treating trade that you don't knock on a door unless they have a pumpkin or another type of Halloween-themed decoration visible. I know that all of my friends had decorations, I even helped the one in East Sheen carve hers, so people would definitely know that they would have sweets at the ready for the costumed children.
This has led me to think that maybe trick-or-treating is becoming less fashionable and, who knows, maybe in a few years it will become a thing of the past and the tradition will come to an end.
I have tried to think of some reasons as to why this activity that I used to love as a child has been less popular this year and here are my reasons:

1) Parents
The objective for trick-or-treaters, or at least what it was for me, is to get as many sweets as possible (side note: there was a woman down my street who actually gave out money instead of sweets. She was brilliant. My sister once got £20 from her.) Sweets are not too great for kids' dental hygiene, apparently too many can rot your teeth or something dumb like that? I've also heard down the grapevine that an excess of sugar is bad for your health and can result in obesity? People keep coming up with the craziest notions. Therefore, parents are probably getting less and less keen on sending their children out and doing something that can result in tooth decay. Also, big fat bummer if your mum or dad's a dentist.

2) Religion
Let's face it, Halloween started as a pagan festival; it originated from people celebrating the devil. For this reason, religious people (or just those who shun the devil) technically shouldn't like Halloween. There is a possibility that the strict religious parents are disallowing their offspring to go trick-or-treating more as of late and this could be a reason for the decrease in wee tykes knocking on doors.

3) Credit Crunch
I feel like I am just making excuses for society now, but this could be a perfectly valid reason for the lack of trick-or-treaters this year. As the majority of the planet knows, our current economy is not looking too wonderful, I won't bore you with facts or anything (mainly because I don't know them) but it means that people are getting increasingly stingy with their money. So stingy that they may not want to spend a few pounds in their nearest supermarket to buy a bumper pack of sweets to give to the street children. This is totally fine, people can do what they want with their money, but it does mean that there are less houses for kids to go to for sweets so they might not want to go out, resulting in not so many trick-or-treaters overall.

4) Kids these days
The world is a changing place, people are changing children are becoming rowdier and scarier, you don't want those crazy young 'uns climbing in your windows, snatching your people up, trying to rape 'em, so you better hide your kids, hide your wife and hide your husband 'cause they're raping everybody out there. Oh no wait, different story. Anyway, you get the idea; people are afraid of the London kidz (the 'z' is deliberate), why would they want some noisy, annoying children coming in their doorway; why should these people deserve their treats?
Also, kids are becoming more spoilt and bratty and they continue to ignore the second rule of Halloween- you only ever take one sweet from each house. All this discourages families from buying sweets for the trick-or-treaters and bothering to carve pumpkins etc.

Anyway, for any/all/none of the above reasons, there were less trick-or-treaters out and about this year than in previous years, c'mon London, this is not okay! Get off your fat butts kids, chuck on some dark coloured clothing and draw on whiskers- you're a cat- then grab a plastic bag, step outside (preferably with some friends), knock on some doors (only the ones with pumpkins), say "trick-or-treat" lots and get yourself some sweets (or money if you live around me). It's so easy and so fun. It also helps if you do this on 31st October, any day after that and you might get some strange looks.

Not sure why I felt compelled to attach such a creepy picture, I just did. (My favourite is the leopard-child who looks like her trousers have fallen down. The astronaut-tinman is also great.)

There is also a possibility that I am way off and there was triple the amount of trick-or-treaters as usual this year and I have completely the wrong end of the stick. This is highly probable seeing as I wasn't out upon the streets terrorising my neighbourhood and taking their sugary products myself.
Either way, you're never too old to trick-or-treat and I don't think this is a tradition that should ever end.

M x