First of all, personally I don't care. If it's legal, I'll bowl with it, if it's not, I won't, don't care. I think USBC is missing a chance to differentiate recreation from sport though. The average bowler doesn't get patterns. Yeah the blue oil looks cool on the PBA shows, but there's no blue oil at league, so they have no basis for comparison. You can show them lane graphs and pictures, but until they actually see it AND bowl on it, they're not going to get it or understand. HOWEVER, it's really easy to understand the difference between college baseball players using aluminum bats and the pros using wood, and it's nothing that has to be explained to be understood. All you have to say is that the pros have equipment restrictions, they can't use the balls that make it "easier" to score like league bowlers can, because when people see pros using the same balls they do bowling on lanes that look the same as theirs, they see no difference.
Now the issue for the manufacturers becomes that they lose advertisement for balls that aren't legal for use on the PBA, but I really don't think the PBA has much influence on ball purchases anymore. Literally not once in the last three years have I had anyone come into the shop and say, "I want the ball -insert random pro- won with the other day." I could be wrong, but 10-15 years ago, that happened all the time. Somebody would win with a ball on a Sunday, and Monday I'd have people in there wanting one. Now it seems to be primarily consumer and manufacturer driven.
This idea makes sense to me, continue with the current specs, but put spec restrictions on equipment for use in higher level competition. The funny thing is it doesn't even matter, most people I know use equipment that's inside the new rumored specs anyway, not going to hurt my feelings, but it could hurt manufacturers who all the sudden lose maybe a couple ball lines, and more limited specs means more limited reactions which means more limited choices which means less revenue most likely. There NEEDS to be a bolder line between recreation and sport, and it needs to be achieved without adjusting the recreation side.
