Butch, I can understand your point of view also. I have one scale O Atlas locomotive, a GP15. It looks great, but as a straight DC locomotive, it runs like (insert colorful expletive here) with no low speed response. My pre-Proto1 MTH conventional stuff runs better. One of these days it'll get DCC or I'll do the old Williams trick of putting the motors in series.
Lionels's going to be stuck with vertical motors because their electronics take up most of the available space in the shell. It's pretty tight inside the U33C. It's even be hinted that if there's going to be a smaller diesel locomotive, like their FM H12-44 or an F unit, it might have to have one vertical motor.
Lionel's Jon Z. has lobbied for a better gear ratio and the SD70's are supposed to get it, so we'll see what happens there.
Rusty
