The gold pins were not necessarily a situation of changing to heavier in spec.  The reason people referred to them as heavy was that most houses spec the lightest available under current guidelines.  IIRC, the gold were 3.10's with a slightly different center of gravity.  Mimi put them on a practice pair for a regional in the SE and I actually preferred them to "regular" pins...unfortunately, I was one of the few.  The other thing with gold pins was that the scoring unit had to be tweaked a little because of the different reflections from gold to white.

Hose - I had mentioned heavier pins before, but heavier for everyone - and that idea didn't get that good a response.  In theory, this sounds like a good idea, but in reality, it could have serious financial impact on the bowling centers.  Each machine currently holds 20-30 pins (that I know of), multiply that # by how many machines in a house, then figure that number times how many different levels of league they will have.

16 lane house x 20 pins = 320 x 4 (1 youth, 1 adult, 1 scratch league, and 1 tournament set) and you now have 1280 pins needed for 1 small center (instead of 320).  Not to mention they will need a place to store these pins, and most centers do not have a lot of room in back as it is.  Then, how would you like to be the guy manually pulling those pins out and putting the others back in every day?

It would be neat to try, but I don't see this as a realistic solution.  Keep thinkin, though!!

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9-

Why, WHY won't the last one just fall??  It's WIGGLING for cryin' out loud!!

Here is a little insight from a mechanic about the pins.

A case of pins cost approximately 90 dollars a case.  If your center has 40 lanes, and a big youth program, you would need to buy 80 cases (20 pins per pinsetter).  This comes out to an extra $7200.00 every 15-24 months depending on the corporation rules or the Independent's Owners decision. SO Cost effective it isn't.  Also, I believe that most people don't care about the weight of the pins, they are just out to have a good time.  As Much as we all covert league bowling, especially with Brunswick and Amf owned centers, there is no justification in buying  these extra pins.  

ALso, at my center on Friday Night, we have about 14 lanes of Adult leagues and 10 lanes of youth leagues going on at the same time.   What happens if a pair breaks down in one of the leagues, and they have to be transferred to a pair in the other league that is already done (Adult league transferred to a pair used by the youth and etc.).  The mechanic would need to pull out those 20 pins, and put the other set of 20 pins in.  Considering the mechanic is more then likely working on the broken down pair, trying to get that back up and running, the last thing in his mind would be changing those pins out.  

The other issue is where to put this pins??  I have been in the back of approximately 10-15 different AMF and BRunswick centers (I have put time in for both companies), and all of them have small aisles behind the machines.  Most of these centers only have approximately a 6-8 foot walkway behind the machines, and most AMF centers don't have a seperate shop area, so they have there work bench and Office desk and cabinets in the pit aisle.  You already have approximately 20-30 boxes of pins which are either older pins used in emergency cases, or newer pins that get rotated in as you start losing pins.  NOw you are proposing adding another 20-30 boxes in this space.  It starts making it a very crowded space to work in, and hard to maneuver around.

New ideas are always great for people to think of and shows the positive spirit we all think with.  When thinking of this considerations though, also take in account the business aspect of the moves.