Press Fit vs. Full Floating Wrist Pins

"I think that it's more of a manufacturing issue than a "performance" issue. "

I agree - but it's not the assembly. It's the additional time of a full floater, and the extra cost of installing the pin bushings in a rod, and the clips in the piston. Simply put the old engines using pins were the way it was always done, until the bean counters got with the eingineers and figured out it was overkill for an engine that has to last through a car loan. So the later performance engines kept the floaters, the standard duty stuff went to the cheaper pressed pin for the sake of money. Like you say - one bushing is half a cent. The clips are about the same for two clips. Times that by 8, and times that by 600,000 for each displacement engine they made and it's significant.