Hi Dave, this is what we need on this thread, pros and cons. Unfortunately my view with cockers has been tainted by years of unreliability, bad timing problems and poor after sales service.
They have improved things recently, but the marker is still a bit of a make up of bolt on bits. Surely by now they could design the parts into the frame, it's not that difficult.
"As long as they're not tinkered with"
This is the problem, markers need to be serviced, cleaned and maintained, you can't do this without some sort of "tinkering". I like the idea of the cocker, but not the product.
Recently i spoke to a sponsored team, who have changed over to cockers, and their reply to the maintenance side of things was, "just send it back", unfortunately you can't do that eight o'clock Sunday morning.
I must admit that i have just done the tech course with WDP, and it was an eye opener, to see the way the company has gone forward and improved the product, not only in the design, but the way that the marker is manufactured. The attention to detail in the manufacturing process gives me faith in the markers, and as a toolmaker i appreciate the quality of engineering.