The problem here is that this is yet another bit of what I thought was good and useful information, both about the Almighty Ounce, and about how to address trim issues as they exist, not as a hypothetical. But like several other things, it has now morphed into something unrecognizable, a bad "recommendation" that I never made, being attributed to me and carrying whatever influence I might have about it. Several other examples:
Bellcrank - bellcrank design provided, extremely bad copies made, Chris Rud's airplane crashed when bad copy collaped, after already having to have been repaired. "Brett Buck Bellcrank Failed!"
OS-20FP - very extensive testing done over period years, intricate and 100% complete directions given (which could not be simpler). People "try it", "It doesn't work!!" including hostile and foul-mouthed emails about how I "scammed" everyone and I was "Anti-American". Inquire further, ST spraybar and tongue muffler, Top Flite 10-6.
Tail incidence - fairly careful experiements over years, suggest that there is tolerance in the positive direction and zero in the negative direction, and maybe you should shade it just enough to make sure you don't have any negative, 1/4 degree (.016" over a typical stab chord), and use a airfoiled tail. "It doesn't work! My airplane is junk! And it's your fault!" Someone built in 2 degrees with a flat stab. My fault, somehow.
Tucker Special - as above, we take a super-light copy with a powerful modern engine and no way to adjust the controls, it flys *vastly better* with 1/2 lb of ballast, it's not close. Now we are "recommending" building a 4 lb model with an OS-35S
PA Needle Valve counterbore - barely mentioned but I guarantee multiple people have tried it and ruined their spraybar by drilling out the seat (just like David did on the first try)
There are several other examples but this illustrates the point.
I am not blaming the people who went off the rails, Scott least of all, he's a good guy and pretty knowledgable. But even he has somehow taken the information and wildly misinterpreted it, fortunately before he has seriously committed himself (unlike many of the examples above). In other examples, these misinterpretations have results in crashes, year-long builds that failed miserably, damaged engines, etc.
I am torn - I thought I was providing a service and helping people, relaying a lot of these things I (and others) have discovered over the years, and only those I have a very clear working theory and multiple examples of success. But the result is frequently serious harm/cost/wasted time. I think I explain things pretty well, and in cases of direct recommendations, I am very careful to supply very detailed instructions. I am noted, professionally, as a very good technical writer. But despite all that, these disastrous problems keep happening.
So I don't know how to proceed, maybe what I am trying to do is causing more harm than good.
Brett