I may have not been clear, but the obvious implication in my post was that you should select the best ball for your style regardless of whether it costs $250 or $100. Matchup is more important than simply looking in a catalog and skipping past all the sub-$200 balls.
I've found, though much trial and error, that my game and the conditions I bowl under match up best with lower-RG, higher-diff equipment, with a certain shape (or basic shape characteristic) of core and a surface that is falls between about 800-1000 matte-sanded and if it's a pearl, it needs to not be ultra-slick and/or tame.
Three of the balls in my current four-ball arsenal (an original Storm Thunder, the Storm Dark Thunder and the Roto Grip Silver Streak SE) fit that bill. If you look at cores, while the Thunder and Dark Thunder are virtually identical (the Dark is basically a Thunder, flipped -- which was the old Thunder Road) and while they're not identical to the SSSE, they are similar in shape (as it pertains to height, width and where the higher-density area is within the core). My fourth ball is an Ebonite Elements Ice, which is greatly different from the first three and is there to serve a niche purpose -- when the heads at my home house dry out and get messy, which they do at least once every three weeks, and the other three balls aren't clearing the heads as well.
As it relates to my game, I can't get a super-sanded ball to clear the heads unless I'm bowling in the oil collection pit at the local Jiffy Lube. And a ball that has a very tame surface doesn't have enough recovery for me when I inevitably start pushing right, which is generally the first place I screw up.
My basic point was I haven't bought a truly bad bowling ball in years, even when it didn't match up to my game. I remember getting an AMF Bull Whip and requesting a certain drill -- well, the ball did just what I asked for, it just didn't do something I could control.
I would encourage anyone to find what works for them, then purchase accordingly, even if that meant buying something cheap. We have a guy on a local league who carries 220, but he got into a "slump" -- meaning, he averaged a lowly 190 for a month -- and went through three or four new resin balls, before getting his hands on an old Columbia 300 Black U-dot. Since then, he's shot 279 twice and 289 once. He likes the smooth, direct line that ball gives him. It wouldn't work for my game but it definitely works for him.
Jess
