Understood; IMHO, it is in the application.... as usual. My use was in a rally engine; I ended up with a lot of ring drag and, for my use, rapid bore wear (1970's Opel block castings). Now keep in mind, a typically rally is 200-300 miles total, and roughly 80-100 miles of that will be full hammer-down on the engine. 3 such events is like running a full 1/2 mile circle track season in terms of engine use . I seriously doubt that anyone competitive would run a full circle track season on the same rings and pistons.....so I would expect a different view there. And getting that last HP out for rally is not always the best use of time and money; the old truism is that putting 100HP per wheel to the ground is on gravel limits the value of raw HP.