Quoted from PinMonk:
It's not worship, it's just stating facts. The fact is Stern's mechanical designs are nowhere close to Bally/Williams in ingenuity or complexity. A LOT of that is due to el-cheapo-deluxe cost-reduction constraints from above, but there's a good portion that's simple lack of imagination/complacency at Stern.
Well, you realize that most of Williams Pinball designers and coders work for or have worked for Stern? So essentially, Stern is Williams now.
And as for Data East/Sega being an "also-ran", he's a few of their innovations off the top of my head.
First Solid State Flipper (RoboCop)
First DMD (Checkpoint)
First select your own music (Checkpoint)
First Twin Ramps (TMNT)
First Subway shot (TMNT)
First pin to accept cash (Lethal Weapon)
First game with multi-axis levels (Lethal Weapon)
First to reward Death Save (Rocky + Bullwinkle)
First ever Super DMD (Maverick)
First pin to allow 6 players (Baywatch)
First pin with team mode (Batman Forever)
There are more I'm sure.
Look, I don't mind if you prefer Williams. You just don't have to shit all over Stern in the process. Some of us will defend them.