Interesting discussion. In a joint venture like Märklin and ESU, one part eventually ends up being "the bad guy" in some peoples' minds. The truth is either hidden from everybody else than the directly involved, or lies burried "somewhere in the middle".
Also, early adopters must be prepared for some - unpleasant - surprises. That's the idea of an ESP, to have the brave guys find the errors in order for the vendor to correct them to the benefit of all of us. The vendor, on his part, on the other hand takes upon himself a substantial risk of having a close-to-ready-product exposed "out-in-the-open" as being not-so-close to perfect, as hoped.
So, I really can't find any problems with that.
Personally, so far, I have difficulty finding arguments for upgrading from my CS1 to the new CS2. But time might show otherwise in the future.
What really bother me most, is what has happened in the slip-stream of the marketing-hype for this new device:
First, we got Märklin Delta. Introduction of the digital era.
Then, we got Märklin Digital, a great leap forward, compared to the Delta generation.
At last, we got the ultimate: Märklin Systems, which, according to Märklin, was the ultimate response to the market's ever increasing demands for new features, functions, ease-of-use, etc. A future-proof investment, if you'd believe the marketing bells-and-whistles. The word "Systems" indicated, that it included both Digital and everything else - really a wall-to-wall solution.
But during the launch of CS2, we suddenly noticed, that "Systems" was replaced by "Digital", indicating to all of us, that the Systems-era has ended (another dead-end?) and the new way to go is Digital. Most of all, I understand this change of branding as part of a - probably much needed - way of promoting and differentiating CS2 at the expense of the CS1: "CS1 is dead, long live the new CS2".
In my mind, one of the (many) advantages of Märklin has always been backwards compatibility - you never felt that an investment in Märklin equipment was wasted (although you could disagree with the pricing...). Are we really there now ? Where Märklin needs to market the CS2 so aggressively, that they have to indicate to us, that the CS1-era is over for good ?
Well, time will show - but so far, I look forward to the ESU V3-upgrade in the spring. At a price, yes. But why haven't Märklin introduced an upgrade-price (carry-in replacement) from CS1 to CS2 ? And is Märklin fighting so hard to keep us away from the open DCC system, and having us stick to the closed and proprietary Motorola-protocol, that you have to buy the green-button version of the CS2 to have DCC-support ?
I am a longtime (+40 years) deeply devoted Märklin-fan. But this time, I do not agree with Märklin and I'm far from impressed. I might be proven terribly wrong in the future - I kind of hope so...
