Well...time will tell one way or the other, but personally I'm betting my money on the "good in their day but obsolete marketing tool" revamp of the site - if it comes back at all.
That would be consistent with the general nudging by Scubapro trainers and tech reps toward retiring old but still serviceable regs and selling customers new ones. The sad fact is that it benefits Scubapro to do that as they make their money off equipment sales, and I can't really blame them for that, but it is a short sighted approach and one that deviates from Scubapro's "deep down you want the best" roots when the phrase really meant something in both engineering and service.
The general dicking around with FPFL and press to retire old regs comes at the expense of shops who potentially offend and lose long standing 20+ year customers (and their progeny) who've come in annually to drop off and pick up regs for service, dropping the better part of $100 on labor, plus other sales on one or both visits for replacement of BCDs, exposure suits, boots, gloves, computers, fins, masks, etc that over the years far outstrip the quick and dirty dealer profit on a new reg.
For me, Scubapro sold by far the best regs around at the time (1985) with a promise to continue supporting them for the life of the reg (measured in decades). That was what brought me to a Scubapro dealer, convinced me to drop my hard earned cash (about 3 times as much as would have needed to drop for a US Divers reg through Berry Scuba, New England Divers or Central Skindivers - the mail order sales biggies I recall at the time) and come back year after year for sales and service with Scubapro dealers I was very loyal to.
Now, from that perspective, I can clearly empathize with unhappy customers if Scubapro changes the marketing strategy to sell regs that are not significantly better in quality or performance than other manufacturers' offerings in similar price ranges, is going to jerk customers around on the FPFL deal by making them buy a qualifying reg, computer and BCD just to get the FPFL, and tops that off with hints that maybe the past practice of supporting and even upgrading discontinued Scubapro regs for 30-40 years is not going to continue. If that's the case then there really is no strong incentive for that past generation of loyal Scubapro customers to continue buying a Scubapro product over another brands that offer similar performance, service and designed obsolescence.
Divers paid a premium for Scubapro regs in the Mk V and Mk X era, because the regs, along with the entire company philosophy of quality engineering and long term service and support were worth it . It will be interesting to see if the new museum website reflects that...
