I am not trying to knock Storm, I just can't seem to justify buying Storm anymore. I don't know why, but with most of the Storm balls I have owned I had a great reaction for about the first month, until the polish would wear off. Once the polish wore off I could never get the same reaction from their equipment ever again. Even with taking it to the pro-shop and bring the surface back to stock.
Its not coverstock death as far as I know, because I have experienced that before with other equipment. After a hot water bath, I have never had a ball that was still "dead". For example, my Domination is like a hockey puck now. When I originally bought that ball it was the strongest backend ball I had ever thrown. Now if anything all it does is slide down the lane and never reacts. My Agent was about the same thing except that ball will still hook a little.
I have given them a hot water bath and taken them into my pro-shop and brought them back to stock surface which didn't help. The only Storm ball I still own and like is my Spitfire, which has consistently been a good ball for me. All I used to buy was Storm because I fell in love with their reactions, but now I don't even consider Storm when going to buy a new ball. If I could ever find the reasoning behind this I might consider another Storm ball, but nothing I try seems to work. I might consider a sanded Storm ball, however, I feel that is not their strongest equipment and they make better skip/flip equipment than anything else.