As the instigator of one of these good-shimano, bad-shimano debates, I would just like to say that I was just bordering on going insane that suddenly my parts were becoming incompatible with replacement parts by the same manufacturer, and it was just a LITTLE frustrating to see it happen. Dont get me wrong I love shimano and think they are great for mountain biking, and I think integration is great, it just appeared to me that there was a motive on their part to force the consumers to buy 4 shimano parts when they only wanted one. I am not challenging any pro-shimano argument, simply adding my two cents