I like Sterns a lot and a few of them I'd consider among my all time favorite machines (LOTR, SM, ACDC, TSPP), but I also feel that a lot of them are lacking in originality and many of them feel like clones of each in terms of layout/features. I think WPC were much more unique in layout/toys/feature set. Stern is all about bash toys, magnets, fan layouts, and 3 pop bumper cluster layouts. Some WPC games didn't have pop bumpers at all and had way more ingenius toys and layouts.

Where Stern really shines is in gameplay rules. I really think that the above Stern games I mentioned have code far exceeding what we saw on 90's WPC titles.

Both manufacturer's are great but I'd much rather prefer to have a diverse line-up with only 1-2 Sterns mixed in. A collection of all Stern games would get boring for me fast!