Yeah, I hear you, & you make a good point. You could put 5 346s or 550s or any number of others against each other & find that one particular model is stronger & faster than the other four of the same model, or that they were all different. I know of a stock MS440 that regularly spanked ported ones. I have run only one 550, & it was fast, but whether it was consistently faster than 346s I don't know. All of the 346s I have run were ported, & they were all screamers, some more so than others. I've also had the pleasure of running ported 026s, 260s, & my 261. There are no flies having a tea party on the chains!!