I mean with some weird high end car designs like on Ferraris I understand their priority is performance not serviceability so I kinda get the tradeoff. Though I also assume this becomes a design habit and the companies engineers may not think about serviceability at all.Naw, just shit designed stuff, like Ferraris that you gotta drop the engine out of to change the oil or Audis with the timing belt in the rear instead of the front. You also look up some of that stuff with those exotic engine and see what their intervals are for certain components. Some of it is absolutely ridiculous, like every few hundred hours do this or that, spend lots of money and car-downtime.
Maybe not that Ferraris are "shit designed", but they'll go after performance with compromises as far as engine and drivetrain stuff. And then they are beat around a track by a 911 GT3 or Turbo. And then the reviewers say "but the sound" or something...
But, my pushrod LT1 with one of the stiffest chassis ever will punch way beyond it's price-class and shame cars on the track that cost 2-3x, all with no special maintenance or excessive requirements. In fact, I go beat on it during races time after time and it just asks for more. Porsche tends to have fairly similar design philosophy, where you can go beat on any of them racing, from a macan GTS to a 911, all day long and they just ask for more. If they design it right, you can have your cake and eat it too. You don't *have* to have more maintenance necessarily. You just need the entire package designed well.
The bicycle industry on the other hand is full of retard rejects using hope as quality control when specs and manufacturing are outsourced. Dave turner said the best setup would be tapered bearings, and then I say tapered bearings with grease ports, just like what a lot of automotive/industrial applications have, would be the best. If you had the ability to run a bearing with that lateral support and could keep it full of grease...and it was large enough for the actual forces, then I reckon we'd be sitting pretty nicely and bearing changes would be rare. Dave relented to the next-best of Igus bushing with grease ports, despite requiring moar better tolerances for alignment of the pivots, given the limited rotation of bicycle suspension. With fairly tight control on manufacturing, he could get away with it. Will you find ball bearings on the suspension on a car/truck? Nope. What they call a "bearing" is a bushing usually, as in bushings are a type of bearing. So my Pivot does pretty well over time, I've replaced all the bearings, but the bottom link ones in the frame have really small bearings, doubled up on both sides (XC frame too), but due to size restrictions they probably had to do the double-bearing thing. Then you get the ridiculous proprietary "hat" bearings with the extended inner lip that only enduo makes that are all the rage right now (which the pivot has a couple). And they shouldn't be goddam ball bearings in the first place. It's a shit-fest IMO on most bikes. What you are getting is nowhere near as good as what is possible and daresay normal in other applications.
I get an annoying design if it brings NOTICEABLE benefits. This is why i respect Koenigsegg. Their designs are compliicated AF (was it 5 or 7 clutches?) but they push the technology forward.
As for bearings. This is why I mentioned my Legend. Imho a 170mm enduro bike that's a Cross between my Old Legend and the current Banshee titan, on a mullet setup would be perfect for me. Looking at the Titan it also goes for big ass bearings and none of that Evil bs.
@Gary re. Orange. Performance wise I know it makes no sense to buy an Orange but for some weird reason I always wanted one. I won't buy one but I will always be thinking about it. I think they managed their image well so they sell. To be honest I'm quite surprised given so many people were and still are on "single pivot= bad pivot" hype train.