You tell that to all the 60 year olds in my leauge who used all wood in their 40s who now want more pop to finish points now their feet and arms dont move as well as before.
I'm in my 40s and don't move like I used to. I play against 60/70yos with old and new gear, and those who did attempt a switch are, without exeption, making tons of unforced errors as a result.
Carbonated blades simply do not feel the same as all-wood blades.
- the feedback gets spread by the carbon layer, it will not tell you clearly
where on the bat you've hit the ball.
- the muted response on higher power shots make it harder to understand how hard you've hit the ball exactly.
- inner carbon blades have, even the fleece carbon ones, a gear switching point.
I have tried making a switch, but the longer I'm working on it the worse it feels. I mean the evidence is in the dozens of posts I've made over the past two years: I've been struggling hard to adapt to anything I've tried to replace the old thin 5ply.
Heck, I've been struggling switching to a thicker 5ply but at least it was clear to feel where the problems are.
My club has a decent selection of ~10 national level veteran players, but not even half of them actually use something with carbon in it and those who do, the main choice is fleece carbon (Waldner Senso Carbon, Ma Lin (Myth) Carbon).
My old club, the top team is borderline national levels, all of them wood players.
I mean Rich Dewitt is a better player than any of us in his prime and used a 5ply allwood and a 20 year old sriver but I dont think we should all use that. There is a baseline equipment for each style (gauzy and gonis are not a good example of the "modern" style at all by the way) and then you have to adjust for your own weaknesses.
My point is the whole mention of "modern game" is useless to this audience. "Modern game" and "outdated" are only useful to players with enough talent, age, time, discipline and training resources to make it all the way up into international levels. And those who check these boxes, they don't come here for gear advice. They have trusted coaches, people who know their game in-depth.
So saying stuff is "outdated" or not for the "modern game" is aimed at who, exactly? It's not good advice to any amateur to base their choice of equipment on the meta of top athletes.
Not unless they want to put the same effort in as those top players, playing 6-7 days a week, training hard, often and effective, using trusted, experienced guidance *and not switching equipment multiple times per year*.
