crap, i had typed a long answer, only to accidently delete it all.
I have to weigh in to react to some of the comments and shed some more light. Justin is very busy and has asked me to help when he is tied up on other aspects of his job. We do want to provide accurate answers so be patient as we work to get them.
This painful decision was reached internally, after analysis in the service department brought it to light. There is no grand conspiracy to keep all of our Porsches running, just the reality check of how to supply parts for dwindling demands versus the minimum orders required to get them. An example is the Quest panel, a unigue one, not used across many products. The minimum to order metal, as we do not punch that metal, would mean large dollars sitting for a very long time (lifetimes at current run rates) or, doing singles at a very prohibitive cost, resulting in ludicrous charges to the end user. Tough decision, but yes, as a business who has responsibilities to a huge customer base, employees and, of course, owners so these decisions have to be made. There have been some very painful comments made by some and that is your opinions, but we did not make the decision lightly. Yes, we have set some hard dates, but know that we are working on other methods of helping or minimizing impacts on those affected. The key is direct communicaiton with us. It is obvious that we will not be able to make all happy, but we have not done this to purposely hurt a small group of end users. We do have to be the most responsible to the last customer and so have set certain cutoffs to help them as they would have the shortest life span.
There is also some points to make about looking forward. As we have grown and diversified, we have tried to use more common parts, thus greatly increase the possibility service years down the road. Summit to Summit X, Spire is one example, where that metal will be around for years. The second is the efforts that have been made over the years to improve the longevity of the panels so replacements may not be needed in any kind of practical window. Edge bonding materials, dielectric coatings, bias strip changes for less environmental impacts, spars, methods of manufacturing have all greatly increased reliability versus many of the old legacy methods.
Now some of you believe that we are moving head long into midfi. I am sorry, but I love the Motion goods and they have been well recieved for the performance/value so are real ML products. At CES, we will have 3 new stats with two aimed at our high end line as know that we are working on more extreme items down the road so I don't see us going away from the high end.
Again, communication folks.
