BG,
I totally get what you say, and I can agree for the most part. But the main argument I recall against MA, is based on a comparison to TRC packs, which are a considered a great value. But we could use the same argument against many brands, not just MA. Same thing with the FP outperforms MA argument.... could also be said of many other brands.
Also, I'm not so sure that the current MA stuff can't stack up against the best out there. Maybe the Enerland cells could run circles around them 2-3 years ago when 20c was generally the best and 30c was simply amazing... but I would be very surprised if the same were true today. Maybe the 40c packs will outperform my 20-35c MA packs, but with that rating, they are supposed to. And none of the 40c packs are cheap either... in the same ballpark as MA for sure.
I haven't played with my turbo35 or eagletree for a long time... and I don't have all the other brands to compare. But, I think my 4200s are really good and I just noticed recently that the IR is really low... which does tend to indicate how good the pack is.
Maybe the only reason I replied is that MA recently picked me up as a driver, so I wanted to at least give one voice of support here... especially considering all the discussions we had here long before I had them as a sponsor.
Before anyone bashes on me... I do pay for my packs (not 100% never have been) and I can actually get a couple other brands cheaper through other contacts... but I choose to run MA. That's why I got some prebuilt packs... needed ROAR legal packs and wanted to run the same thing their customers get.