Great to hear that the kit bot is getting an upgrade - I'm very curious to see what it looks like. Hopefully it's possible to put in 2 speed gearboxes with slight modifications.
I like the C-Base frame (we've used it in some fashion for 3 straight years). But I'm excited to see improvements. In my opinion, the biggest drawbacks of C-Base are as follows:
1) Not setup for direct drive
2) Track width not maximized: wheel treads are at best about 2" from the outside of the frame perimeter
3) Limited electronics room: belly pan area too narrow / wheel channels too wide
It's fantastic to hear that this is a direct drive ready frame. On items 2 and 3, I think there's a decent chance we'll see a bit of an improvement with
Corner Connect presumably going away. If wheels can be 0.5" closer to the outsides and wheel channels can be 1" narrower, I'll be a pretty happy guy.