Normaly this hole is used for the aligment of the upper flipper.

Are you sure? Sry, you are normaly the expert here, but on my game the upper flipper is almost aligned to this hole and it looks just like the hole that is standard by the lower flipper finger. And on his picture the flipper is in up position.

The single elements of the hobbit game design are awesome. No game has better modes that are so deep tied in the theme. But the way they are combined don't feel as it should be. In my opinion in this game are the best modes in pinball history but I always try to start the easiest one, cause that is all I need to do to get to the next mini wizard mode. I only go into the harder modes when I am lazy in selecting an easy one or if I just want to have fun with a certain mode. I like the way Dwight gave us different ways with SW way better. I set Mode stacking to off on SW. I like to concentrate on one mode. But I like how you can choose your way. That's what I want in the hobbit, there should be different ways and short cuts to the deeper Mini Wizard Modes in the hobbit.
The Hobbit should be a game that puts his weight into the modes. They are what make this game great. But it's multi ball stacked with multi ball. And the modes are as important as the spinners or the Beast MB and so it becomes repetive.
I don't get the criticism about layout, if it's a bad layout than Keith did his best to make the best out of it, the modes are genious done and fun to play!!! But you just don't have to play them the game is not centered around them.
Like I said, the parts of this game are better than anything out there but I don't like the way they are put together. Hobbit as it is now is a very good game but it feels unfinished. That's why I will wait with PotC.

Yea! But I trust Keith to know better how to make this game the best it could be. So I will keep it hoping he got the time someday.

I just don't get why the things people are looking for in an update would make the game less enjoyable for you. No one said the game should be made harder. I think what people want is that the game shouldn't be as linear as it is now. I don't know if there is any other game with so cool and with so many modes as in the hobbit. But you only have to play one to get to the next stage. And you always try to select the easy one. The structure of the gameplay as it is now is in my opinion a waste of the potential. The modes are what makes this game awesome, but the focus of the gameplay structure is on the MBs. For me the most important step would be that the Arkenstone modes should require different ways to get to them. So that you can go to them in different nonlinear order. It just needs all to be arranged in an other way.