I feel most frame building thoughts are and have been by the seat of the pants logic. No testing. Just build the darn frame. Race it and see what fails. Revise what fails and race new frame. Fix what fails again. After a while frame is pretty good and lasts a decent amount of time. However how much testing and research has been done for steel lugged frames in its history? I challenge you to find that research and if found are results interpreted correctly and applied correctly. I can just see some frame builder in northern Italy taking out the testing results by say Colnogo and following their lead. No he just keeps building what he built before and what worked slowly improving his frame if at all.. In my field of Architecture it is very difficult to get articles on correct construction techniques and method. Most construction by seat of pants logic and keep what works over time. I bet a carbon fiber frame like trek builds has a vast amount of design and testing than steel lugged frames ever had. And it is due to nature of the material. You just cannot grab a bunch of carbon tubes and throw them together. Look at first carbon fiber frames with aluminum lugs. Most are a joke. It took a lot of research and testing to get to frame Lance won on and it works. Charles Nighbor Walnut Creek, CA