Funny thing is, Al seems to be turning out to be the "poor cousin" of materials used on frames in the future? It's been a long time since I read of any super glowing reviews on aluminum frames, classic or new. Now that steel is becoming the cool, rediscovered material for bicyclists, could Al further fall into oblivion?? I also noticed that classic Al frames aren't getting that much respect from many CVer anymore, many now describing them as possible "death" frames or forks.
Even CF is not so new to everyone anymore and it seems like so many tricks have been done with it already and the techno addicts are getting much harder to impress with the latest CF frames. I'm wondering what the next future wonder material would be for bicycles.
I think the resurgence of steel is mostly caused by it's long proven, and understood characteristics and the rumors of CF frames "exploding" all over the place helps quite a bit plus as I noted, Al seems to be getting boring to many as you can even find the material on department store bikes these days. Only real negative that people can still bring up with steel is possible rusting, but then there are now products that you can shoot and pour into the frames that this is not really an issue anymore.......plus many just love the looks of lugs on a bike.
Now they better not start building steel frames in the new "tail dragger", "Compact" configuration, because I think that will just be too ugleh!

Chombi