I believe on thing that has helped MAs is that they had the partnership with Traxxas and they made thier packs to be a perfect fit with the VXL trucks and a good number of people buying the VXLs were thier first purchase in the BL market and the convience of not having to mod to get a very good performing rig, I had been out of the hobby for over a year and the VXL got me back in.. my golf game got pretty good...kinda like a blackhole once you are in good luck getting out