"The only thing that matters is your comfortable with your equipment. That and the tip is well chalked and in good condition."
That's you Rod, and then you again
"They need to be taught good stroke fundamentals and hit the c/b lower"
So if you're a man, you must acknowledge that your initial advice was incorrect and you were wrong as clearly and by your own admission, a tip and chalk is not the onlything that matters.
The funny thing is that your comment about stroke fundamentals is entirely correct, as stroke is the be all/end all of imparting cueball spin.
Laminated shafts and layered tips tend to offer much more spin and power, they tend to mask a weak stroke. It's an artifical way of learning so to speak, like the aluminum bat wielding college baseball stars who cringe at the thought of wooden bats, the performance advantage is gone, now they have to go back to fundamentals, fundamentals they never learned properly due to advanced equipment.
Consider this, (and the golf industry is about 1000 times worse) but at what point do you consider the equipment to be cheating?
Imo, pred shafts, OB-1 shafts, a few of the break cues and most of the jump cues have already surpassed this point. Tournaments have been banning jump cues for a while, the IPT banned phenolic tips, there are people that see this type of equipmnent as making the game too easy.
Ultimately, learning on said equipment will hinder you, the same way all the old IPT pros were thrilled about not using simonis, alot of the simonis playing pros were practically pissing themselve's at the thought of slower cloth, heaven forbid!!!! Their stroke couldn't handle it because they grew up on this nappless wonder cloth that allowed table length draws with no skill at all.
Again, stroke and spin are all about the fundamentals, fundamentals should be learned on basic equipment. Look at it this way, if someone can't draw properly they're probably a beginner, would you recommend a Predator with Moori tip to a beginner?
