Originally Posted by
DaveSSS
Perhaps, but every other brand uses the inboard bearing design and they all seem to work perfectly well. Campy made the change to a deeper splined aluminum cassette body with an oversized aluminum axle back in 2000 and it works quite well. They've never had to redesign the hub since then. It makes their Record hub cheaper and lighter than Shimano. Shimano resorted to a pricey Ti cassette body to bring the weight down on the 7850 hub, but it still weigh more than a Campy hub.
Those shallow Shimano splines are not a good design.
They work fine with any cassette.
Campy and the others had to go with an oversized axle because of the problems with inboard bearings. shimano went with it to save an ounce or two and realized their mistake..
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/free-k7.html
Formula and some Joytech hubs go with the outboard bearings and those hold up quite well. A friend who bought a cheap Windsor tourer that had the Formula freehub rode it for over 40,000 miles before the rim failed. The hub is still in fair shape(needs overhaul and cones).