realskiers

Yeah, for a pure carving machine the Prog 9+ was great..agreed, but, for most folks coming in to the shop...it's a lot of ski--and beast is a relative term.  The guys who want real high speed performance on groomers and firm surfaces get prosumer race skis (which, Fischer has for years made some of the best..the RC series were wonderful), others still want a ski that can handle moguls as well as groomer and the Prog 8+ was better in that category (although, again, that ski proved hard to move..and I recommended it to most skiers who came in looking for an east coast ski biased towards groomer with some dabbling in bumps),

And still others liked the idea of a wider use power carver, but ultimately opted for something wider (our shop moved quite a few Rossi CX80's and the ensuing Strato 80's over the last two seasons--great skis that Rossi won't make anymore).

I heard great things about the Fischer Motive series...Is fischer expanding/ continuing that line?

The shop I work at is only stocking (actually pre-ordering) race stock competition skis from fischer.  We do fischer and Rossi race race products-skis only for fischer..no boots) this season, for one reason or another, fischer stuff has been hard to move, and not because of quality as I think they are still among the top tier of ski manufacturers.

Oh, as for my labeling---I neither want nor deserve any extra bump or group designation.  There are plenty of guys who work in shops full-time and know nothing about skiing, who knows, I could be one of them.  Seriously, I'm happy just to be one of the gang-folks can read my comments and decide for themselves if they hold any water or if they are just hot air.  And there is a lot to what Max and JBotti have said here and elsewhere, ski reviews don't mean much unless you know the ability style and testing parameters of the reviewer in question.