Do large pledge classes hurt a chapter's ability to establish meaningful friendships

[sugar and spice]

Absolutely not.

It may diminish a person's ability to be friends with all or most of their pledge class, but what happens is that the pledge class divides up into various smaller groups. I think it may actually be beneficial for forming friendships because the pool to choose from is larger -- just by the law of averages you're more likely to find a good friend in a larger group than a smaller one.