Thats why I said (maybe in another thread) that one additional necessary variable would be sales data. Honor scores and titles are available...sales data is not. In order to use honor scores and titles...you'd need sales data. Without it, like Bowl1820 sort of mentioned...it's just a matter of numbers and the company that sells the most balls will always have the most honor scores. You'd have to peg honor scores/titles to sales data and create a number that would be something like "titles/honor scores per ball sold". That would solve many of the problems listed.
Yes, newer balls won't automatically have honor scores...but they'd have similar cores and covers to other balls....manufacturers aren't really developing anything new...just shuffling pieces around...so that could help in their marketing. If Hammer releases a new ball with a Scandal core and a Taboo cover...they could claim that they are; "combining our Taboo cover (a ball that has a 0.31 TiHS/ball sold) with our Scandal core (a ball that has a 0.62 TiHS/ball sold)..."
To factor in using multiple balls for an honor score or title...you'd have to either know when the ball change occurred (unlikely) or simply as how many balls were thrown and give each ball an equal portion. So, if I throw an 800 series to surpass Iceman's accomplishment...and I use all 3 balls in my arsenal...it doesn't really matter when I made the change...the breakdown would be something like this:
Game 1: 300 (DV8 Thug Life)
Game 2: 290 (DV8 Thug Life changed to Ebonite Warning Sign)
Game 3: 300 (Scandal Pearl)
The Thug life would be credited with the 300 game as would the Scandal Pearl. Each of the THREE balls would be credited with 0.33 800-series.
It's true that older balls would have higher numbers...but other than the Hy-Road...I don't know of any mid-level (or above) ball that has remained out for very long without being discontinued. And yes, balls with lower numbers would be passed over...but those balls SHOULD be passed over...because they aren't showing any value to the bowler. And...if a ball has a lower score...the company can simply keep it out a long time (like lets say an Ebonite Cyclone) and the score will slowly increase.
The "downside" to this system is that too many "new' bowlers will try to buy high-performance balls...but, to play devil's advocate, they kinda do that already.
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