Actually, Stan, I was marveling at the clarity of your thots!
I certainly can't speak of performance at the higher/highest/whatever levels but I know for me the barrel arrangement is not a factor in my performance. A properly fitted gun with a properly attended to trigger (single of course) poses no handicap to me at my meager level of ability. The dominance of the O/U in competition came I think as a consequence of the form not being dictated by tradition and the development alongside of the quality single trigger - clearly a competitive advantage. From that point the fad thing prolly kicked in and the SxS passed away aided in that course by meatheads like flourish here demanding/worshiping outmoded configurations and effectively killing the SxS as a true competition gun.
Personally, there was a Majestik Grade Fabbri SxS pigeon gun I once saw that I would have killed for and prolly been able to live with as my sole gun.
have another day
Dr.WtS
