Hello,
I'll chime in on the education aspect of museum curating. My experience here in Toronto has been that pre-industrial revolution weapons are essentially disregarded in academia. I have a specialist degree in fine art history and not one of the many courses available even remotely touched on the art of weapons. Yes these were tools for killing, but we consistently see accross most cultures around the world that weaponry has been the recipient of most of a culture's creative and technological knowledge and ability. If this were taught in our schools, the appreciation for these objects would persist and establishments would recognize public interest.
Re: the samurai exhibits...people (read families with kids and teenagers) flock to them due to the media hype surrounding nihonto. What with anime portraying blind "samurai" and effeminate boys with ~10 ft swords cutting through concrete walls...
The Royal Ontario Museum here in Toronto has recently invested a lot of money to essentially rebuild half the museum to the design of a +/- famous architect and thereby attract tourists. The exhibits are reduced to only the most costly/valuable pieces, sacrificing variety. The museum itself looks unfinished, with dry-wall screwed into the temporary frames. The ROM is now in crazy debt due to construction costs going over budget/projections. Some of the weapons I've seen have active rust. Few people bother looking at them closely.
So much for preserving culture
Emanuel