John, yes, agree with your comments on the add blurb..
I have been a Haltech man most of my life, started importing them into S.A. late 80,s..Got the agency here and swore by Haltech. They improved features and the systems just got more expensive. With time came the availability of E.F.I. specific chips from Motorola and a few others. This enabled a lot of smaller guys , enthusiastic guys, developing smaller more affordable systems.
Some were good, some were absolutely terrible. The good systems went on to become better and more funtcional while retaining reasonable pricing.
When I built the Alfa Romeos for our local Class A production cars , it was decided to go with Motec because it was "The Best". Yes, I agree, it is possibly the premium E.C.U. on the market today but at one hell of a price !! They really are expensive.
My daily runner to and from the shop is an original fuel injected Alfa Romeo GTV6 30l fitted with a simple locally built system called Dicktator.. Been running it for over eight years now and its dead reliable. More so that the Haltech e11 that fried itself on me after 3 years.
My new project, the TT Lexus 1UZ in an Alfa will use Spitronic. The decision was made on the basis of local , quick support, reliability and ease of programming. As stated before, I do my own programming as I really dont trust nor do I believe a "tuner" can setup a car in a few hours on a dyno.
I have also tried and used a Dutch system, some from Germany wich proved very difficult to master as well as numerous american stuff. The pioneering systems back then were the Airesearch Hotwire system with three screwdriver adjustable settings !
Anyone remember those ? Pioneering days !