No inside info, and certainly not intimately familiar with the facts, but I have always believed that the failure of the Epoxy ball lead directly to the demise of Columbia. Lots of sunk R and D, high cost to manufacture, plus all sorts of quality control problems batch to batch doomed the ball. I had one. Never thought it got a good reaction, and it cracked out after relatively few games.
Here is the thing people do not understand about ball reaction. Finding something with pure increased friction is not enough. Urethane was successful because it had more friction than polyester. However resin enhanced urethane was a step forward because it enhanced friction off the dry without significantly increasing friction in oil. Besides the quality control isssues, Epoxy failed because it increased the friction in the oil as much as off the dry. If you lose your early skid as a price for more hook it accomplishes nothing except on the most flooded conditions.