Slowerone, using oil on the kingpin varies viscosity as it gets dirty which can be an issue for running outdoors and varies as the oil gets pushed off of the kingpin by friction. A shock might suffer much less of these problems, pack may not be an issue either as it is possible a heavy oil may not be needed given the volume of the shock compared to an oiled hinge pin. Also I never said it would be better...only that it COULD be. I am only pointing out that old ideas often come back into play as technology changes, that what did not work in the past due to limitations may later work in the future.
That said I do like the simplicity of the damper tube better...I just don't feel the oiled kingpin is as effective as a damper tube. I've been considering ways to use a damper tube on the front effectively and using a coil over damper tube as a rear shock as well...but haven't come up with anything I like just yet.
Damit, I'm with you on the cars being too nose heavy...however lately manufacturers have been saying that they have been finding that grip is actually increasing as the weight has moved forward. Personally I'm not so sure on that but some of the setups I have seen recently have gone back to the same rear spring they used to run with 4 cell instead of the lighter spring people were initially running when we first went to LiPo.
This front end is much more in line with the Delta front end then it is with the 12is front end.
I"m not suggesting that this is a better design than our existing ones...only that it might be. Yokomo has much better engineers than I do looking at these issues...I am sure if they did not feel they could gain an advantage with it they would not have put it on a production car.