I know where you are comming from Atlas and I agree. I am a diehard BowTech fan (have been since I first layed my hands on Big Johns personal Patriot SC), but they really didn't come out with anything "innovative" this year, last year...yes, this year... not so much. They pretty much just refined their line-up, but if you look around at the rest of the bow companies, nobody really did anything that was ground breaking this year. HCA has been pushing the speed aspect for a few years now and them warranting their bows to less than 5 gpp isn't new, they have been trying this for a few years. PSE did move into a new direction, but their major set-back is that their design isn't what is typically associated with the parrallel limb bows. The major set-back that I see for them is simply their name. They have and probably always will be known as a "cheap" bow company, and the prices that they expect for their top end bows is around $100-$150 more than bows that have more marketable names (BowTech, Hoyt, Mathews, ect). If somebody asked you what type of bow you had and you said a PSE, then they asked you what you paid for it and you said, $949.99 bare bow, that person will probablly laugh at you.

Elite really isn't innovative either, yes they are a new company, but their design is going to be associated with the BowTechs simply because of the owner and the fact that he is using the same ideas he did for BowTech to make Elite. Take a Elite and a BowTech, spray paint them flat black and ask 50 regular archers what type of bow they are andI would be willing to bet that 45 of them would answer BowTech.

Ross could possibly be the next company to break out with a "must have" bow, but IMO they would have to inscrease the speed compared to what they have now.

Hoyt and Mathews are both treading the water but neither company really is endanger of loosing any business. Their fan base is large and so well established that they really don't need to spend the extra money trying to make some ground breaking product every year. For the most part, Hoyt owners will always buy new Hoyts and Mathews owners will always buy new Mathews no matter just how much or little of an improvement their is in the product!

It seems that all bow companies have hit a wall for now. They have hit the point where they have maximized their designs to get the most performance while still maintaining the great shootability of the bow. This has happened before, take a look at some of the bows before Hoyt came out with the Tec Riser and Cam and a Half, and before Mathews came out with the parrallel limb bows, the market was in more of a standstill each year. The past 5 or 6 years companies have been pumping out new idea after new idea and it seems as though they are start to run out of ways to revolutionize the compound bow. Give it a few years and something will come out that will truly rock the bow market and all these designs will change again.