I think people are always trying to re-invent the wheel. You have to look at things in terms of properties, and see if those properties need minor tweaks. As opposed to making wholesale changes for the sake of change (or marketing). It's the evolutionary approach, it's natural. You change something gradually, only where a new material or technology allows the improvement. New inventions are great. But inventions that already exist are only tweaked.
Take balls. Sheesuz Chrises. Everybody wants to change the balls' colors. Accustats yellow and red, gimme a break. Cyclops mauve, chartruse, tope, powder blue, puuuleeees! With "tournament blue" cloth, very little needs to be done with ball colors. Why not leave them the same as much as possible? At the most, I would only tweak the purple balls to a SLIGHTLY lighter shade of purple to differentiate them from the blue balls or the black ball. I like the tan color for the 7/15. THERE, that's it. That is all you need to tweak to solve the problem.
Now, what was I saying, oh yah...
Looking at it from the perspective of properties. Tips need to have the right hardness (firm yet pliable) and have the right degree of surface friction. It's really that simple. If someone ever comes up with a new material that can out-perform leather, then great. But guess what? It won't out-perform leather by a whole lot (one major improvement could come from longevity maybe, but that's a different topic). And that material won't be rubber. Rubber has been around for along time. We would all be using it by now if it were the best material.
Fatz
