Quoted from Shapeshifter:Embarrassing also that Spooky, JJP, Heighway, DP, Nemo, P3, all have color!
Stern are the ONLY red dots company in the world!
They're also the largest one of those companies, and manufacture WAY more product per year than almost all the others combined. Stern has been able to survive because they have had a manufacturing business model for decades that ensures that they stay in business.
If they started way back when with LCDs/Color DMDs from the get-go, like the other companies, I'm sure it'd be a different story, but the fact is that changes and implementations that would drastically change the build flow flow factory (educating all the employees on how to install the new system, making sure they can get all their ducks in a row as far as new parts needed on such a massive build output, new resources for animating a color display rather than dots which I'm sure is more expensive, etc.)
It's just not that easy to make a big change like that for a company that has a structure established for years. They've had to trickle in advances slowly like SPIKE in order to make way for the new technology. But once they start cranking them out, it'll be ready for the demand and able to get to all their customers quickly and efficiently.
I just enjoy the pins from what they are, and cut Stern slack because they do so much as is that I'm sure if it was as easy as everyone thinks it is to roll out the LCDs, they would have done so by now.