I agree 100% with you SaveTheWales it amazes me that Rob Douglas held the World Speed sailing record on what looked like a stock Cabrinha kite and essentially a refined twintip. Very impressive compared that to the $$$ and technology that was invested in Sailrocket to beat the record! One thing I am fairly sure of is that no stage of the design process was concerned with the ease of righting the thing after a capsize. The restraint of higher performance might well be usability. This shouldn't be to much of an issue I wouldn't have thought for speed runs as once your on course they seem locked in and they don't move the kite and you aren't going to set any speed records if you have to relaunch your kite anyway. I'm sure if there was big money invested in a kite campaign there could be some very innovative designs and ideas to beat the record again which could eventually trickle down to kites for joe blogs. These people would be the fermentors of creativity who could bring us something new and different 
For race kites like the ASV there would surely have to be more usability but I don't see how there could be many negatives to camber profile as a step forward in design. I never said that it was anything new but the reason I suspect that the other attempts at such designs failed to make it into production is because they were before their time. The advent and growth of the race scene has created a bigger market focused on efficiency (with the ability to go upwind, downwind tack and jybe). There isn't too much info about I think because the registration for the next cycle of race kites has just closed so hopefully more info comes out soon.
I'm sorry Kitepower Australia to me it doesn't seem like there is much merit to your statement that "it stands to reason that developments in improved efficiency in kites will come from brands like [FS and Ozone]." I can't say much about FS but to me the last Edge was really just an incremental step on its previous model. To me it seems like more money from these big brands is going into marketing teams to come up with statements like their new kite is as "refined as a race car in terms of high end performance" and of course design otherwise people might get confused about what year model kite they were riding 
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From owning both Edges and an ASV's I would have to agree with Sir Rowdy that ASV = Edge in terms of top performance and build quality but from your statement and KP's I would bet anything that neither of you have ever flown an ASV kite 
but that is not the point of this discussion but kudos KP for your ability to mention Ozone in almost every one of your Seabreeze posts 
as mentioned it was the Best Hellfish
new Cuban" material leading edge - very small diameter, very strong etc
man it took some stick, but at least Best had the balls to try
people wont try new things, as most are sheep and ride what the flock has
need a few lateral thinkers and innovators to keep progressing
either that or its a new colour scheme and tweaks over last yrs model to get the bucks
I think the point is you don't even need to fly an ASV (or own an Ozone) to see that it's a direct copy... I have flown one however.
