Quoted from Betelgeuse:

This seems to be a recent phenomenon. To me, the B/W flippers and feel are still the pinnacle of pinball. There's nothing wrong with Stern's flippers, but they feel a little more 'clacky', for lack of a better word. I have a little more difficultly doing finesse moves like mini-flips, cradle seperations and drop passes compaired to B/W flippers. Only over the last few years have I seen people claiming Sterns have a superior feel. I can only guess that they have played way more Stern games than B/W, so they have just become used to them, and/or the B/W games they did play needed a rebuild.