mm
and to the one who mentioned k2- as far as their snowboards go, about 7 years ago k2 bought Ride and Morrow and moved production of all 3 to their factory in China; Shakespeare Fishing Pole factory. They turned Morrow into basically a k-mart brand (which is weird because I felt Ride kinda copied a lot of things Morrow did. Morrow did a lot of different things with placement of carbon inserts, that Ride kinda stole. a Ride Timeless was pretty darn similar to a Morrow Lithium back 7 or 8 years ago).
boards that had previously been hand made became machine made. K2 used to do a lot of cool stuff, including urethane bumpers on the tip and tail (to absorb impact rather than f up the metal edge) and tuck in the metal edges a bit past the effective edge. (just like Lib Tech used to, and STILL does do). k2 had articles about it, stood behind it etc.
but when a board is machine made, one of the finishing processes is the board is put through rollers to grind off the excess base material, and without a full steel wrap, the tip and tail would be ground to nothing. So k2 went to the full steel wrap technique
many aspects of the 3 board companies were reduced in quality, yet the price remaind the same (except morrow which they killed) and often rose.
anyway, the bad stories are mostly just people being sold equiptment that wasn’t right for them, and improper setup. a lot of people dont know how to set up their own stuff but still spend upwards of $800 on a setup, so I think people should get stuff that’s right for them, and have it set up in a manner most conducive to their riding style and height/weight/shoe size/leg length etc