Originally Posted by
Bah Humbug
The thing I really don't get is Spesh's "mid-compact".
That's because you're looking at it from the consumer side, and not the supply side. For a supplier, the "mid-compact" allows him to sell a compact, something close to a standard double and he only has to deal with a single 110BCD crank spider.
None of this helps the consumer, but part rationalization like this is very common.