I was perusing balls online recently looking for a ball with a pearl cover and a tall, skinnier core, for a more true skid-flip motion.  The only ball I saw that fit that bill was the yet-to-be-released Honeybadger.  Why are all the cores these days fat, pudgy things?

 Fat pudgy things lend themselves to lower rg ratings, and those tend to make the ball smoother and "rollier" than tall cores do.  Smoother and "rollier" lends itself to predictability, which many bowlers prefer over the skid/snap reaction you can get with higher RG ratings.

 The ballcos make whatever they think will sell in bigger numbers. Right now, it looks like fat, pudgy cored things are in fashion for the most part.

There aren't too many nowadays. As much as I like low rg cores, on house shots taller and/or light bulb shaped cores have been money for me.

My recommendation would be to look at light bulb shaped cores and also cores that are wider at the top and get skinnier at the bottom

I'd like to see the Pitch Core with a reactive cover.

I believe the Freestyle and Freestyle Rush from Motiv fits the bill too. Not sure how strong of a ball you're looking for though.

Higher RG + Pearl can easily translate into a ball that can be sensitive to oil.
The Brunswick Fanatic is one of the flippiest balls that I've thrown.  Its a high RG/higher diff pearl that even as a pin down is too much for me at the breakpoint on most patterns.

If you can get a Jet Pilot, do it. It's basically a 900 Global Link and that weight block is the bomb on the friction.

Just a thought, but in recent times, the shape of the core seem to have much less to do with the ball's reaction than it used to. I've seen plenty of tall, "thin" cored balls have a smooth reaction, plus I've seen plenty of round-ish cored balls have a flippy reaction.

While the standard still holds, "70% of a ball's reaction is determined by the coverstock/surface", other than the bowler,'s portion of the "blame" for the ball's reaction,  a ball always equals cover + core. Besides that, one can always influence the ball's designed-in reaction by using drillings, including pin-PAP distances, VAL angle and Drilling angle, as well as the surface preparation.

So, in summary, I'd worry more about the basic design of the ball + your own style of bowling much more than I'd worry about the shape of the core.