I too believe this, I went from owning all BW. I had T2, BOP, CFTBL, TOTAN, STTNG, IJ, TZ (in other words a lot of the heavy hitters) so it's not like I had only owned marginal BW titles. And while I didn't dislike them at all. When push came to shove, I own all Stern and have not sold one Stern I have owned.

I own POTC, SM, Tron, XM LE, STLE and ACDC premium.

I'm not saying I would never sell my Stern, but to me they are just as good as the best BW.

It would be hard for me to argue that POTC is better than TZ (it's not). But to me, POTC is fun to play, have great sound, lights, call outs. Deep rules etc.. Plus I have owned POTC for 8 years and have not replaced one part or had to fix anything.

TZ was hard to keep running, I mean it was a 20 year old game been somewhere likely in a bar for 10 years before I got it. Even after a couple of shop jobs it was still was not 100%. Same with IJ, great game but POA was flakey. STTNG was out of order more than it was in order.

I sold CFTBL for a year, when I went on my new Stern kick (with Tron XM). I thought I missed Creetch so I got another one. I couldn't sell that game fast enough. Nice looking game but the rules were too simple it was kind of meh when I think of it next to ACDC or Tron or STLE.

I realize TOTAN is a special game, I love the toys such as disappearing magnet, the subways the cage save trick skill shot. But to me the game play was just OK. I think Stern is way behind when it comes to TOTAN type of design details. I think Stern is kind of cookie cutter. But to me when the rules are working and the ball is flowing like in ACDC or Tron. I can overlook the fact that Tron is a fairly simple game to manufacture or has a small amount of unique parts. Stern sometimes has the magic of putting the little things together and making them work.