Well, I have to say that i like the Diamond design way better then the GCIV.
The only thing that i didn't like about the diamonds initially, were when they first came out, and you had those early tables that had such a tight cut of pocket, that you couldn't shoot the cue ball from the spot into the side pocket with confidence. It was that tight.
And then with the smart tables, i didn't like the face that the Aramith ball would get switched out and replaced with the red circle cue ball cause the sensor picked up the red circle better, but then the weight of the cue ball would be different in relation to the set of balls.
I also didn't like the original smart table inner pocket design that if you rifled a ball into it, it would hit the bottom, and bounce right back out and off the table cause it was basically flat. (That particular design flaw cost me a hill hill match that with Jimmy Reid) They have since fixed the problem.
And finally, when they have the table set up, and the rail has a hump (mentioned earlier in this thread) so that you can see the ball on the rail, but when striking the ball, if your not careful, you will hit the bump in the rail and ramp up and over the cue ball or miscue severely.
SO, The rails are cut right now. Nothing IMO is better then a rail that is cut to the pocket size you want. I can't begin to tell people how much money i've lost playing 1 pocket on tables with crappy shim jobs where the divots in the shims cause a pot luck situation where some of the time the ball shoots downtable, and some of the time, it shoots uptable, on simple cross corner banks that would never be a problem on a diamond.
The table design is nice. I don't ever have to worry about gouging a huge groove in my shaft because the chunk of metal around the pocket is sticking up or not flush, cause there IS no metal around the pocket.
Plus, i NEVER have balls falling out of the table. I dunno if it's the GCIV specifically, but since i've been playing on them, i ALWAYS have balls falling out of the rails when i shoot something in the side pocket.
ALWAYS.
It really starts to get on ones nerve when you realize that it's not a fluke, but rather, is some issue with the table when you might have to walk around and pick up a ball that is on the floor, 10-15 times in a 2 hour session.
My only complaint is the rail speed.
Maybe that's cause the majority of times i ever played on one was a tournament situation where it was either wet or iced cold from the air conditioning or both.
But i don't know if the hump in the rail has been taken care of or not, whether they shave them down or if the rails installed are different somehow in that aspect.
So in the grand scheme of things, i would say that the evolution of the Diamond table has had some hiccups along the way, but that's to be expected with any new product.
Diamond is IMO the far superior product.
If i could manage to get the rail speed down, i would have no complaints.
But a bouncy rail is WAY better then a dead one.
At least you can move.
Just like when my buddy was playing on a table at the Boston Billiard Club in Danbury Conn., where he had a pretty steep cut shot on a ball close to the bottom rail and had to go uptable to the other end rail for position, (mind you now, he already had found out exactly how slow the rails were playing and was trying not to self destruct) so anyway, he CRUSHED the shot, and cut the ball in.
On any other table, the ball would have gone up and down maybe 3 times if not more, length of the table.
But that's not what happened.
It hit the rail, and came off about a FOOT. (not due to any spin)
A FOOT on a maybe 120-degree angle cut shot at worst.
Diamond has come a long way, and fully deserve all the credit they get.
