Originally Posted by
RubeRad
Are you kidding me with this? It's not about actual improvement, it's about marketing. Would it improve my ride in any way to switch to titanium chainring bolts, or carbon brake levers, or...
This is a marketing opportunity. What makes you think cycling lemmings wouldn't fall over themselves to replace or retrofit cranksets and pedals if it were advertised the right way?
Besides, as we have discussed already, there is a scientifically accurate basis to claim that the design is improved.
It isn't purely a marketing problem - it is also an accounting problem: Every change made to any part costs $$, and every change needs to show sufficient net benefit appropriate to the corporation. The change must either reduce costs in the long term, make the product worth more to consumers to justify raising the price, or even reduce the cost of a product after the sale (stop lawsuits, for example).
Improving the pedal interface may reduce the cost of production slightly (no more LH threads), but it may be a wash (non-standard shape like convex shoulder on spindle may cost more than standard square shoulder). And to make it worth more in consumers eyes could be a tall challenge, and the design is not so flawed that it is causing problems on existing bikes.
I will wait and see if the free-market proves me wrong.