O well - I guess knowbody really knows...  Thanks....

The ball companies only design for what they see out there, it's a back and forth deal.  With such a wide range of oils and conditions, they can't possibly know what's going down where.  They can only design balls based on what they see and what they hear. 

The oils nor the covers have changed much in the past 15 yrs or so....just marketing

I wouldn't say there hasn't been any difference over that period of time. I'll buy the last 4-5 years maybe, but as someone who only had a ball poured as early as 2001 and then getting some new ones tonight ( Arson Low Flare and First Blood) there is some difference.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking Urethane to Reactive difference, and if you were a really solid bowler back then, it may not show up as much, but for someone like me the forgiveness shows up.

With the few shots I threw tonight with both balls couldn't get either to fall off in the gutter, thats not something I could ever say about my Beast or Eraser 

And quite honestly, the Beast is very similar to a Low Flare or IQ tour editions...Eraser is stronger than you may remember...

Surface and ball maintenance goes along way with how older bowling balls react.

Problem was with older stuff they didn't supply their factory finish process, so trying to replicate it with a resurface just didn't happen.  Quite often we had problems getting a ball to react like it did out of the box.  Now we can get really close. 

Columbia Beast was early to mid 90's and Eraser was early 2000's...so you're talking abt a ball 20 yrs olde and one just under 10...if you do NOT have a controlled environment, such as all 3 bowling balls new now, you can't make that assumption...

Bought the Beast NIB out of my pro shop in 1998, I believe it was the last version they did with it. I bought the Eraser in either 2001 or 2002 I believe, because I was out of bowling shortly after that. So you are talking 15 and and 10-11 years respectively.

Also I was referring to when all of them were brand new. I still bowl in the same house and they pretty much still put down the same pattern so while not a perfect comparison its still relevant. I'm not saying there is an OMG insane difference, but there is some with that much of a gap in years, hell even urethane balls aren't exactly the same anymore.

Do the new balls have similar roll and shape to them, well yeah, but that wasn't what I was really talking about either.

Edit: I'm still throwing the Eraser, it probably only had 10-15 games on it before I quit, with how mine is drilled and with the OOB finsh, its strong, but not all that strong compared to what is out there today. Definitely fits in the medium category.