I totally agree about studies part: if one visits any product forum, then most of posts are there about flaws in product and reports from happy users/owners are minority.
However, I'd like to thank Swoard team about the trend they created, not necessarily about the Swoard board:
Before Sword "era" hardbooting seemed to be only about narrow (i.e. <19 cm waist width) boards and athletic (race/bomber) riding style, fun factor was something to consider in second/third/fourth order. And this was thing that most people looked at like they look at penguins: this is not for me, this is for individuals from other continent (Antarctica).
Etremecarving concept created a little revolution IMO: it showed people that there are elegant (but not necessarily most effective) ways to ride steep slopes down and with proper equipment and technique this is achievable for everyone. One does not have to have Swoard to do it, but with right equipment it's much more enjoyable: IMO in case of snowboarding fun factor is the most important parameter and there is no fun during ride then no need to snowboard either.
I know that this whole concept of pre-rotation and laying down wasn't new before EC site launching and Swoard production: IIRC CERN snowboarding site (and Swiss snowboarding school) propagated this style years ago and pureboarding team (from german-speaking part of Switzerland) also used prerotation technique in their teaching.
However IMO Opus videos were the ones, which brought back grace and style to carving: nice style according to manifesto's Gesture Purity (
https://www.extremecarving.com/philo/gesture.html) and Rotation (
https://www.extremecarving.com/philo/rotation.html) gave targets for others to achieve and repeat. And this, accompanied with production of Swoard boards (which didn't went quite smoothly and seems to have production problems even now) and organization of EC sessions in Zinal created revolution in hardbooting, which could be compared to revolution in snowboard production for race (created by Kessler with their titanal boards) but with much broader impact globe-wise: now almost every board-producing company has wide (21-23 cm waist width) and longitudionally soft board in production. And this is good IMO, as this allows to brings back grace and style to snowboarding (as snowboarding is not about drops, spins and rails only after all
).
And in addition to all above mentioned Swoard team seems to be responsible for organizing the truly international carving event with their ECS ( I know that pureboarding had their sessions and some other groups had local events, but ECS seems to be single and only event to unite all carvers across Europe and even further).
Of course all the above doesn't mean that I want to downplay Swoard boards significance. Quite the opposite: if it had performed below expectations, then I'd be the first person to complain probably, as I'm from EU's "developing country" and paying "arm and leg" for bad board would be quite bad investment for me
P.S. I really understand and appreciate the significance of positive feedback after last ECS: I received quite a few positive feedbacks from the people I photographed and this probably made my coworkers to think that I become lunatic after my vacation, as there is no grumpy employee anymore, instead I grin from ear to ear all the time
Thus in order to show that I learned from this I must say that I thank all the people who worked with Swoard production and organizing this event. I have really waited this event (is it sufficient to say, that my previous snowboarding before ECS 2007 was in Zinal 2006, week after ECS session?)
For those, who prefer short version of my quite long posting: long live Swoard, long live Swoard team!
Converting potential energy to kinetic..
During the ECS, I have heard so many super compliments about the Swoard. 
, etc. but they don't write it on the Forum. 
Thanks in advance!
