And that's precisely why they spend so much time developing new alloys of steel and aluminum and many other metals. So you can have strong tubing that doesn't weigh as much as the old tubing.

And if you arrange them in smaller triangles, the resulting frame will be stronger than one made with larger triangles.

Keep in mind that "stronger" is a relative term. Any bike you ride is going to be strong enough to not fall apart on you while you ride it unless it has been in a crash. Ride what you like.

An armored truck will be stronger than my Honda but I'm not driving an armored truck to work everyday. Just ain't gonna happen.



But the question "Why are compact frames stiffer?" was answered long ago with the simple "smaller triangles are stronger than larger triangles".