[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Taylor

Oh, the one with the driveshaft that kept falling out?

As a longtime customer of both AndyMark and VEX, I understand that a single product does not a company make. I also understand that the vast majority of issues from both companies came from manufacturer error - this year, they seemed compounded for both parties. I thought both the Hoosiers and Texans handled these problems with grace, humility, and outstanding customer service.
I understand that no amount of testing will simulate the rigor provided by tens of thousands of high schoolers bashing and beating their products, and especially when compared to products available to us as recent as five years ago, the COTS products are remarkably robust.

I understand your point, and I do appreciate the value of COTS parts and do not wish to insult the work that people put into increasing their quality, but unfortunately the experience my team had with AndyMark parts this year (not limited to the gearboxes, mind you) was not acceptable. That said, I suspect this thread is not the place for this discussion so I'll give it a rest.