I understand that you feel that way, but think back at what the AE team guys were running for power since they released the kit:
- 540 motors without a basket, and the biggest rotor available to cut down on the KV, then -
- Wild Cherry caught all kinds of flack a few months back when he said the AE guys were testing a drilled/pinned top shaft, a rumor that turned out to be true, then -
- The Ryans show up at the Reedy race with 550 motors with a basket that they had to buy from some third party on the outside, and they win their first major race.
Which begs the question -
why the change? Obviously there is no problem
since the AE guys aren't trying to fix it. Okay, wait, that doesn't work.
Why pin the shaft and give up the advantages of the decoupled slipper? Chris Jaroz contention notwithstanding, several AE drivers have been running pinned for some time (BK included, who always runs more motor than anybody else) so that doesn't work.
Was it availability of motors? No, because the 550's have been available for a long time, why not run them right off? So that doesn't work.
The simplest answer was the FT AE guys knew they had a problem with the slipper right off the bat, and the early solution was to motor down.
A better solution would be to use the clutch basket.
And an even better solution would be an all new slipper setup (spur, front and back plates) that increases the surface area on the slipper pad (read that, larger clutch), because the fact is
this truck doesn't have enough slipper out of the box for the big KV motors guys are running to be competitive ASSUMING you want to use the slipper to slip and not fade like crazy if you let it slip at all, which is what I expect AE to introduce on the FT truck, IF they don't put it in the RTR before that.
If you have an alternate theory, I'd love to hear it.