Not true. Like Myles said pivot placement plays a bigger role than linkages, but the shock plays a vital part in the overall performance and the links play their part as well. A good shock will only go so far to improve performance of bad suspension design and 100% vice versa. If the shock's tune doesn't offer enough support the suspension won't be able to cure that. No way. So when a bike's suspension is designed both of those along with links are considered and tuned to get to where the designers want the bike to perform. For me all of the changes made to the design really are great, but the biggest plus for ALL of us is the curve that has flipped from regressive to progressive. Reason for the way it was is when duals started making in roads hardtails fans were still convinced that HT's were the way to go. A big sales pitch was the whole "pedals like a hardtail thing". That meant LOTS of air in the shock (some were recommending as much as 10-15% sag) and if you pumped the shock that hard AND had a progressive curve the bike would have killed you. Little to no consideration was given to how a 100mm XC bike will behave when hammered on trails or today's XCO and World Cup courses. Today we know that is so 2000 and that you need want a bike to have small bump compliance. For that to happen you need a sane amount of sag, good mid-stroke support (1. to make the bike feel snappy, 2. so it won't dive through it's travel) and ramp up towards the end of its stroke to resist harsh bottom out. Suspension design and shock tune plays a part in that. No doubt. DW & Maestro are known to counter quite a bit of pedal forces, brake jack, etc and doesn't rely on the shock to save it. Some others less so. Great reference site (that's used by actual designers) to have a look at whose bike is doing what and what the impact of pivot placement is Linkage Design. Link to the holy grail of suspension bikes: http://linkagedesign.blogspot.co.za/search/label/Ibis Also, contrary to popular believe shock placement plays little to no part in the overall performance purely because of its placement. I would guess moving the shock to the BB area was done for these reasons BB is already a high load area that needs quite a bit of material. Beefing it up to cope with the shock's forces and mounts will be a fairly easy task. To mount a shock to the TT means a lot of material needs to be added in an area that wouldn't need it otherwise so you're gaining weight and lots of it. Mounted as is means greater stand over without compromise in other areas Lower COG (added bonus rather than intention of said design)
