With all the talks of new technology on here, I've been thinking a lot more about how the sport has evolved. This used to be Mountain Biking. Plain and Simple. Now its XC racer, Downhill and Pro Freerider. When you buy a bike now you have to pick you catagory. Its great that bikes have advanced so far, but most are so specific to one type of riding that if you were to take that bike anywhere else the people you ride with would mock you.
These discussions make me feel even stronger that "trail bikes" ie Giant VT, Spec Enduro and others have a very meaningful place in the MTB world. They serve the all around purpose of being able to pretty much handle anything. No they aren't XC race bikes and they aren't full on freeride rigs, but they ride single track well, and you can DH and light freeride on them.
Personally I own an Enduro Comp. When it came time to purchase a new bike I looked at all the riding I do. I don't race anymore so a longer travel FS bike would suit me well for rough XC stuff and doing some drops. The bike doesn't climb as well as some, but I don't like climbing. If I had a bike that climbed like a goat I would still hate climbing. I like highspeed downhill singletrack so having a bike that excelled at that was more important. Whats great is that with a fork swap and possibly better disks I could easily downhill on the same bike.