Bill, not to pick a fight, but focus on Andy's example. I think his concept is correct.

"Hoods may be replaced with hoods of an alternate material."

Take that statement within the context of the remaining IT ruleset as it stands.

1. Would you consider a stiffer, but identical in all other dimensional respects, legal? I think we would.

2. Would you consider a hood that was made of a different material and formed with a scoop in the middle for cold air induction legal? I think we would not.

I agree that it a spherical bearing's ability to control and modulate the movement of the suspension and the loading on various suspension pieces via the fact that the sphere rotates with little friction is less clear of a "design change" than the scoop, but I think the principle is correct.

Full disclosure -- this is coming from someone with an IT car that doesn' thave them, and would have to spend a boatload of dollars to get them. So in some respects, Katman is right about the reasoning behind the reasoning for those of us who think this is a gray area that should be kicked over to the black.