First,
Given proper rod angles, etc, there is nothing wrong with long stoke, the O-320 only has a stroke of 3.7 ish and the H6 3.50, the 360 is a little over 4. Short stroke, large bore is called oversquare, and is a design favored for its High rpm ability. I guess I don't understand your point...first you said the internal parts were flimsy, and now they are too heavy. These parts are pretty well engineered and the manufacturing is really first rate. (The casting mfg for deltahawk for example casts and machines superior's cases)
Could things be lighter, hand finished billet rods, and forged pistons? Sure, but why? At 2700 rpm the stock parts are plenty stout. In the interest of full disclosure, I did trade my stock pistons for forged units, not for compression, but because they came more closely balanced, and the cost was about $500 for all for on exchange.
Second if you think that a spining triangle, within a double elliptical chamber does not change directions....well where are you on the whole "sun rising in the east thing". Any radial inertia vectors you would own up to? If the only side loads are seal springs, why do crank failures case the rotors to blow out the side of the case?
I have built a ton of air cooled engines, and raced for more than a decade, I have seen the best components that money can buy. I was initially attracted to the Egg package when I was thinking about an empenage. It did not take me and my dad (4000+ combat hours M.E. CPE) long to see that vitually every answer, on every website, from every vendor was something like "No failures have ever been seen". Gave me the willies. I could not find any way to do this without a ton of money, and for less performance.
But no one in the movement would ever just say "Hey, you're right, we just think this is neat, and are trying to evolve the approach, but right now it is heavy, and slow, and involves substantial additional risk."
Finally, there is a distinction I have never understood in these discussions:
Frankly few of us worry about the actual core engine reliability
Why not? There are numerous additional failures which are possible which can kill you, which will fail the delivery of power.
The very technology which is "superior" creates these single points of failure. Again, carb, mags, O-3XX there are no cables, and no wires, and no charging system that will ground you.
So this superior technology creates complexity, which creates a need for even more complexity to make it reliable, which makes it all, well.....complex, and heavy.
By the way, the lycoming TSIO failure lawsuit was a bit more complex, it was a multi-party litigation where the subcontracting foundry was unable to meet its indemnity committment, and the marketing party (Piper) was off the hook, no lawsuit of that complexity is that simple. I have read the case. I have not seen it on any of the free law resource sites, but most public libraries have Westlaw access, where it would be available.
All I am saying is that I object to the rhetorical claims of predicted reliability.
Again, I know this will get flames. Maybe in another decade the package will be refined.
