As someone who has raced on not only old CRC carpet, new CRC carpet and ETS carpet, I can tell you that the only real big difference is that the new CRC carpet has a lot more grip. Gluing the front sidewalls is just about mandatory. As far as the aluminum chassis fad, it will pass when people get tired of bending $100 chassis.

Another big difference is the car count. When I was at the 2015 1/12th scale Euros, we raced on brand new ETS carpet. In Europe the races tend to separate TC and 1/12th, while in the states we don't. So our big races tend to have a lot more cars running on them on a big event so the 12th scale cars see more grip here than over the pond.

People wanted more grip, so we gave it to them. I love how people who have never raced on ETS carpet seem to think that it would solve all the world's problems.