Maybe Stableford is unpopular because of the name.
Names matter to my way of thinking. Perhaps it sounds too British, and it most certainly is that. But then again so is golf. Perhaps it sounds remote and complex. Or perhaps it doesn’t sound as thrilling as “medal.”
Look up a list of golf formats and you’ll scroll through a bunch, including very likely shamble, scramble, and Calcutta, before finding Stableford. And of course there’s match play, which perhaps has its own naming issues, but match play requires an opponent. Stableford can be played alone, and thrillingly, but it’s likely at the bottom of the list. Names matter.
If it helps, you could consider simply calling Stableford it what it is—at least in contrast to stroke golf—it’s playing for points.
That’s what I tell people when I mysteriously—from their perspective—pick up a perfectly good golf ball as it rests on the green. Of course I do so because I can’t score with it. Perhaps I lost a stroke on a fairway bunker and perhaps I lost another getting onto the green. If so, I can’t score, so I pick it up and get ready for the next possession.
I just tell people I’m playing for points.