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Ozz,
It's not too hard to understand the difficulty in designing and testing these products. What we have is a collection of second order systems that each have a tendency to become non-linear or even saturated. The systems all have similar frequency responses so have a tendency to interfere with each other. This wouldn't even be so bad but the systems are not contained or mounted to anything particularily ridgid. That is, truck beds bend, loads shift and road surfaces defy prediction.
As a result of the above, the designs are rather imperical in nature and are a result of trials and errors until something is found that seems to work. Then, just like in Dilbert, marketing goes to work trying to recover some investment.
This is why I am a bit cynical about these products and also why I look for the most simple solutions. Simple solutions tend to keep you out of unexpected behavior.
Early in my career in engineering I remember one of the guys telling about the first "optimal" flight control system. In an early flight on one of the x-planes, it encountered a supersonic skid where it responded with a supersonic spin whereupon the pilot ejected. Unfortunately, we RV'rs don't wear parachutes. Fortunately, we rarely need them. But, bear in mind, an aircraft is far, far easier to model than the supension on a random RV connected to a random TV.
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