Virtually no innovation? Hmm, ok.
I guess companies like Joytech, Smok, Aspire and Yihi didnt innovate on anything. I think you need to do some research. Ive been in this a long time. Really kinda racist and factually incorrect. Also incredibly embarrassing and offensive to see this kind of nonsense.
My 'concern' is that what I have seen since the days of this hobby having begun is a market that has done a pretty terrible job with pricing. I used to be one of those people that said, if it isnt handmade and $200, I dont want to even know about it.
It continues to allow mod makers to mismanage the supply and demand side of the equation. It continues to tell mod makers that charging $200 for a mod, only making a couple of runs before moving on to the next thing is ok. It isnt. As a consumer, it is frustrating.
It is ok to want nice things. It is ok to buy nice things. Im not sure why my post was seen as an attack on your character and the very fiber of your being, it was not. What I am concerned about is both the message we are are sending to mod makers and the message threads like this send to people who might be under the FALSE impression that alot of money equals better performance.
I own expensive mods. I own cheap mods. I have an authentic Hurricane. I have an authentic GGTS with the crazy atomizer thing he came up with (if you lined all the parts up, theyd reach to the moon and most of the way back). Ive had a Provari and several DNA 200 devices. Hell, Im tooting on a Yihi G class right this very minute (a new mod currently selling for $220).
I also have and own many lower priced mods. The RX2/3, the RX300, the Sigelli touch screen thing they made, a Veritas, the Aromamizer, the list goes on and on.
There are fantastic value priced mods out there that in my opinion, perform just as well, often times, better than the expensive mods. There are also value priced mods that dont, just as there are high end mods that do not. In fact, the hit or miss in my experience, statistically speaking, has nothing to do with price. That was my point.
When a thread called "high end RTAs" is created (implying only expensive RTAs here), you are perpetuating this notion that price equals quality. It does not. Ive used $300 RTA's that were terrible. Out of all the RTA's Ive used in the pricey range, only a handful were "worth" the price. Why? What usually happens is, something takes a flawed $200-300 product and iterates on it and creates something better at a fraction of the cost.
You can argue the merits of clones if you want, but from a pure economics perspective, clones are merely responding to the market. If a mod maker didnt produce a product that sold for $200 that he could sell for $40-50, clones would be hard to justify.
I get it. Its a free market (ideally speaking, provided government blah blah blah). Mod makers can make and charge what they want. Consumers can purchase what they want.
I just disagree with the notion that only high end RTAs have a place in a discussion that should really be about great RTA's regardless of price.
