Hmmm....
I'm still not entirely sure of why they needed to fix something that was perfectly all right (absolutely brilliant, come to think of it) but I'll reserve judgement until I've tried the soup...
I know what you mean, but have to say that I trust Mr Crawley. He's a sensible chap. I find it hard to imagine how it could have been improved but suspect that keeping properties might have been looked at. I bet its basically the same as the Aculux 2 which I agree was a superb developer! Personally I dont find the loss of Acutol a great loss (again I stress personally) as FX39 produced amazing acutance, esp if used with traditional films.
I have to admit I have spent a lot of time getting to know other devs after the temporary demise of the Paterson devs which I was settling on. since then I have had affairs with many common devs in order to get some decent times on the slate so I dont have to worry about finding a dev for which I have some connfirmed times. I have had a lot of bad luck in timing, settling on APX in all formats when it became unavailable in sheet...did teh same for Ilford Fp4+ and then Ilford crumbled, same for Forte....OMG. So, I tested Tmax Dev, Xtol, ID11/d76, Ilfosol S (am familiar with Pyrocat HD alread) to spread the risk! Still, I would love to return to Aculux as I think it is has the best balance of image qualities and convenience of the lot! I have times for APX100, FP4, TriX, HP5+ so should be reasonably safe should a product or two slide away. But what is happening on the paper front...aaaarrrrgggg. Forte, Agfa...
I just hope Paterson produces their MG RC Warmtone paper in 20x16 as i can honestly say this is a RC paper I would happily frame. Theres nothing I have seen like it.