Afraid of change?
I think there is merit in that but it is dismissive. Just do a search on this an you will find failure in the normal course of use. Failures in other frames are more generally at the limits of use; jumping, collisions and such. I see hundreds of frames raced but do not see the problems with metal frames I see with Carbon fiber. Granted much of that is cosmetic but the frequency of failures with Carbon Fiber and the tendency to see them as frames which have a short life is hard to ignore. That factory reps can be at the venue and replace frames is nice but it tells me that R&D is still taking place at the race.
In fairness the old performance of carbon fiber to "fail catastrophically" as a component is far, far reduced. I use them throughout my rides as much as possible: stems, bars, cranks levers, seatposts, waterbottle cages. Yet these components, in the lifetime of a bike such as my Bontrager of 13 years, can be seen as expendables to be replaced every few seasons or less. I do not feel that way about my metal frames.
I am not a racer, nor am I very hard on my bikes anymore but my racer teens are and being careful is not a highly developed quality in the utilization of their bikes. This includes transport and general handling as well as racing. Expenses for this crew are out of pocket and replacing a frame at the end of a year, as was once done with Aluminum, is just not on. Does anyone remember that or recall their stiffness/brittleness. Were we afraid of change then?
With that I have to admit I have seen a fair amount of change. In parallel I have seen a lot of change in computers and cameras and especially cameras going from film to digital. I have learned that transition is not crisp or final and that the problems in transition from one paradigm to another have many similarities including boosterism, denial, patches, bridges, accommodations, new kinds of limitations and 'frinstances of success and failure both. Some adjunctive features can make the translation to the next avatar without a hitich, some require adapters, and some face extinction or demand more development. Sometimes all the new stuff works perfectly for a few people and they can't understand why anyone is not getting on the wagon. Sometimes islands of specialization are created. Sympathetic to this, in a horizontal sense, is the quiver of bikes and the styles of riding.
This is hardly a new or unique process. It is managing change through a parsimonious use of resources at limits defined by each user.
