You can always rely on me to make flippant and opinionated remarks - one of my core skills I am afraid. :-[ Your post set me thinking. Having worked in IT support before, I do tend towards fix on fail in most circumstances (if it ain't broke, don't fix it). Someone on another forum bought a 2000 dollar car and intends to spend another 2000 on preventative maintenance. At those numbers and time off road it would be more sensible to treat it as disposable. There are exceptions though - recent issues with Volkswagen need to be addressed proactively as consequences of waiting for a failure are rather serious. So far all I have done to Grimy is remove panels and inspect. No point potentially creating problems until I know where I stand. Now, on to 'average coffee'. By definition an average coffee is going to be better than half the other coffees out there. As a business, choosing to make average coffee may be a perfectly acceptable goal. Choosing a machine that can continue producing average coffee through years of abuse and be forgiving of less than perfect technique seems like common sense. This reminded me of comments made on chat earlier in the week - I have always had acceptable coffees from establishments running an Expobar Ruggero, but more often than not, those with Synesso or KVDW produce something barely drinkable (samples in Sydney CBD FWIW). I think I know why this is and it is partly how machines are chosen, partly (ab)use of machine capabilities. My experience is that pretty much any commercial espresso machine CAN make excellent coffee under the right circumstances, just that few actually DO. Barista skills are certainly part of that, although I expect there are many other factors, some incredibly mundane and not usually considered by those of us outside the industry. A point to consider - if everyone made coffee to the current highest standard, it would all be average.
