Could it be that the number of eagle scouts has stayed consistent because the number of adults is consistent and thus the support inside the program that is needed to get a scout to eagle is still in place regardless of total number of scouts? 

Read this and see if you agree with your previous statement.  https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2014/12/03/individual-scout-accounts/

If giving away 2 million in free memberships is cheaper than paying for things like the West Point Camporee and JAMBO it's still a win for scouting.  Not really, there is no such thing as "ball in our respective courts" in a franchise based organization. Councils, districts, and units either align to the national program and directives or eventually get burned. I would suspect that if the national debt is retired at the end of 2028 as planned we will see significant changes in how national responds to all of these rogue councils doing their own thing. Right now national is too busy trying to keep the house from burning down to worry about the outhouse. 

As I noted locally, we now pretty much have the ball in our respective courts, and we are challenged to find the correct direction, on our local levels.  This can lead to some truly great outcomes, but it may also find greater challenges for locals, especially those already struggling.  Local councils are an enigma it seems, either poorly led, or simply overwhelmed by National directives and erratic direction.  Time will tell.  I hope the true Spirit wins out and comes out stronger.  

Somewhere I saw that the number of military memberships overall is around 25,000. If that's true, then waiving the national fee for those youth will remove around $2 million. A lot of money, but not catastrophic although it likely means another increase in the national fee, which might be further amplified by the effect of the ongoing membership drop.