I think that is why Easton hasn't changed their tech to keep up with other manufacturers. They know their place in the market. They know who their buyers are. Probably why they can afford to liquidate inventory at the end of each year, because they'll never have to honor a warranty because they get customized, voiding the warranty. So with Easton, 1 bat sale = 1 bat. With others, 1 bat sale = 2 bats (with warranty return). Win/win for Easton. No cost for new R&D to keep up with the times and minimal warranty returns.
Yah, and I think Demarini and Miken are laughing all the way to the bank. They just bank on players using their old 44/375s on a spongy bat not designed to take that kind of punishment so that the bat gets tossed for spiral cracks or cracking.
Just shooting into the air, but I wouldn't be surprised to eventually see more rejections of spiral cracked bats made after 2013. After all, the manufacturers and players know they won't break using 52s, so that means you were using the bat for something it was not made for, voiding the warranty. Which would mean having to buy a new bat as opposed to getting a return for it.
All comes down to money, not safety, which is why Demarini and Miken haven't pulled any of their old bats. They can point to those models and say you should be using those bats for the old ball standard, not the new bats made solely for the 52.
In the meantime, Easton still makes a bat (2012 and 2013 being the exception) that will withstand both balls, just takes using the old ball and possibly a ball mallet to break them in faster. Don't know about you, but I'm not such a super major player that I don't need BP, so wanting to bat to be game-ready in 100 hits cuz I'm too lazy to hit BP and then having it break 400 hits later or banned by an ump for cracks isn't on my agenda.
That's why I purchased the 2011 line used at greatly discounted prices. I have not been disappointed in how the SRV4 and SSR4 hit 52s. If Easton withdraws those bats in the future, I will just buy the newer lines a greatly reduced prices. Seems everyone was ragging them completely, and now a few months later, people are like, "my bad, needed to give them more time to break in".
Why pay $200 for a fragile Demarini/Miken when I can get a $99 Torq or other post-2013 model and just take a little BP? Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Demarini or Miken, I have a Demarini DW, which just kills the 52, and it's not even close to being on the radar of being banned unless ASA just flat out bans everything pre-2013, which is very unlikely.