Originally Posted by asid61

I totally agree with your reasons, but IMO it's a better experience to design a chassis and use as many stock vex parts like bearings blocks than to just order all the parts and bolt it together. Designing 2x1 was a (cough) memorable (cough) experience for myself.
I guess it depends on what the OP feels is "too stock" and what is not. Personal experience says to design for modularity (have different gearbox mounting hole patterns) and use stock parts (like vex bearing blocks) without sacrificing learning (make your own WCD 2x1 with slots).