Two things:
- truck-mounted couplers are indeed less than ideal when pushing a train; the lines of force have to wander up and down. But, most of the time they work well in the "real" 3RO RR world, and solve other, problems well. Most of our cars, Lionel's included, are much heavier per inch out of the box than these 86ers, which just seem like too big an ask, sometimes. The angles, the physics...!
- I know you want to run your cars where you like in your train, and I am not excusing the design of the cars, but real RR's do also sometimes have to consider where in a train a particular car or group of cars is positioned, owing to loads, dynamics, car type (not to mention pick-up and drop-off). Probably doesn't help, but it is a potentially "realistic" handling of conditions.
