Do all of your Helimot lovers think that Helimot is the only one that gets "hundreds of rider crashes" to use for research and suit improvement?
Come on, are you telling me that Dainese doesn't learn anything from the crashes of their motogp riders? I would go a step further and even suggest that these bigger companies might even have actual engineers researching the impacts and absorption of various materials to optimize their suits. Resources that Helimot simply does not have.
All this blind Helimot love is making me want to go back to work....it's that bad.
I think the issue is less one of design for riders crashing and more of designing a suit/armor to pass CE/beancounter costs. I won't deny it, i like my helimot suit most for 2 reasons...the apparent strength of construction (worlds above my joe rocket speedmaster suit) and the fit and finish on it. Helimot is expensive, and certainly exists in a price range where you're hitting the "money is no object" level. He's certainly not sacrificing 2/20/100$ a suit to use cheaper leather, because it's not worth it. One distinct negative review and things are going to go very badly for him.
The other thing to remember is...most of the people are using basically the same materials. With the exception of the new T-pro armor, CE approved armor seems to range from "ok" to "excellent". CE approved stuff doesn't promise that it's actual quality, as the Bike Mag people have so carefully pointed out with their own tests. Different makers, even different suits from the same maker, perform differently when put up against a battery of tests. Some very expensive suits perform very poorly.
The issue i can see occuring is a designer saying "Ok, we want to make it like so:" and a bean counter saying "Well, that would reduce our margins by X amount, so make it cheaper, use thinner leather in areas there, there and there, don't double/triple/under stitch that, add some kevlar panels there to reduce cost, etc".
I'm sure dianese does plenty of testing. The question is: How well do those lessons go from the test bed to the end product? How much is hampered by certification, cutting corners to save money, etc? How long is the time between when they discover something and when it shows up in their suits? Does it show up in all the suits? Are they going to retool their factories because there's a chance that a certain seam may split?
With helmut, i know that if he learns something, it's going to go into the very next suit/pattern that is there. Seeing the older suits against the newer ones illustrates this quite nicely. It's nice knowing that i'm getting something that was designed yesterday, for me, for my body shape, with the experience of many crashed suits, including the ones that came in yesterday behind it. That's it, really. If i crash and feel uncomfortable with the armor, i'll swap it out for some tpro stuff. But if Helmut feels comfortable laying 20 years of reputation on the line with the stuff, i'll give it the benefit of the doubt.
Case in point BKS leathers cost approx $2K that was back in 04.