so if i were to replace all the small cams on my rack with one of the crappy designs that's made by a company that i can actually trust to do reasonable quality control, what should i buy? i dont like the over engineering and plasticky stiffness of the new BD small cams and i used to have metolius 4cus that i sold because they were crappy and too wide. perhaps the metolius c3s?

Sure, why not?
I really like the new ultralight ones. I'm trying to get rid of my set of old ones so I can justify replacing them with ultralight versions. But it's like anything. Someone else is going to pipe up that they hate them...

wild country zeros

The zero has many of the design features that people love so much about their POS aliens, flexibility all the way to the cams, yadayadayada. Having said that, the yellow zero (which is the equivalent of the blue alien) is rated to 6kN whereas the same size alien was rated to 8kN (although it only holds 900 pounds in reality).

sam, care to share what happened with your 6kN zero?

I've always liked the Metolius TCUs.

I think having three cams instead of four makes them a lot more useful in the often oddly-shaped placements I encounter.

I have shared that story in the past, several times.

I'll share what I remember of it: p i e c e s.

Ie, it broke. 6kn + ~100kg climber = dead cam

It didn't break.

It was not the right cam for the application. Entirely pilot error. Thirteen other pieces of gear could have gone there.

Heavy climber, fat rope, low amount of rope out, PERFECT cam placement, it pulled out.

Actually it was RAF's yellow zero.

I thought you trashed one...

EDIT: I was reminded of who broke it. It wasn't Strat.