Well brand loyalty is a part of all our views right along with personal experience. Also motors change year to year and it also depends with application. Do your research on what fits your needs as frankly in the last couple of years all the 4 strokes are comparable and so to the two strokes. To me the final and frankly important thing is what boat shop do you frequent ( or will ) and what they sell as driving 200 miles for maintenance sucks. The shop I use sells Merc and Yamaha and they are pretty much straight across comparable. ( if two stroke I do love e tec ) so if I repower it will be one of those. The shop is my final decider.