Originally Posted by ShadowAu

STOCK was only ever called STOCK because that is what the motor was called... there was NEVER any other reason for the name

The only difference between the top STOCK and top MOD runners in the brushed era was the motor and the difference is EXACTLY the same now... its always been the guys that could spend the big dollars on the Novaks, LRPs, Tekins etc that ran up the front... and it happen at club level as well, maybe just a bit less obviously.... batteries, ESC's, chassis and radios were all free, only the motor was spec'd as a 27T with fixed timing at 24degrees... and even THAT sometimes caused controversy when companies came out with new motors that seemed to be so much faster than those that had come before...

It strikes me that 17.5BL isn't much different...

The real issue is that the technology has moved ahead in leaps and because everyone was in such a hurry to adopt BL its come back to bite them on the ass!... anyone with any sort of technical background or interest looked at the early BL systems and KNEW than once the competition between the brands got into full swing, the possibilities for tuning them would be almost boundless and now the RC world doesn't want to lay in the bed it made for itself!... the Tekin RS has shown just how far the technology can go...

Stop trying to attach some mythical nirvana class to the name STOCK...