Hello,
Creagdhubh I'm glad you come bak to this subject.
I had the pleasure to attend this ball with my wife at the beginning of this month and I personally think this is the function you should go at least once in your life because this is the one of the very few occasions to wear full evening dress if you like it. Most people came by forming parties but this was not our case. Never mind, for dinner, we joined a group of non British and met US, Russian, French and Italian people.
The atmosphere was fantastic. I thought Scottish country dancing attract mainly retired people but this ball revealed nearly the opposite: many young people really enjoyed Scottish country dancing (yet it is reeling but this an other issue!...) as you can watch on Youtube although there are very few videos of the different editions of this ball.
Nevertherless if you don't dance Scottish dances at all, then you could get bored according to what I noticed.
By the way for next year if a group of members from this forum wish to attend this event by forming a party then it is possible to get a nice discount...