After all these years, you'd think it would be possible to design/implement a kicker that works? Can't recall my STTNG ever failing to kick the ball back.

If the pin is faster (and I'm sure it is), the mechanisms need to be tweaked or redesigned to accommodate the speed.

I've had 3 sets of drop targets on my Met Pro. On the first set, the targets wouldn't drop reliably. On the second set, the targets would often drop without being hit. On the third set, they function correctly. Throughout the process, Stern reps actually blamed some of the weirdness on the location of the drops and speed of the ball. Sounded good, but if you look at the manufacturing tweaks, it's clearly just a cheap mechanism that needs to be "just right" for it to function properly. When spending this type of $$, I don't think it's asking too much for the kicker and drops to work…not exactly bleeding edge technology!!!