You know at some point there is a boundary at which a manufacturer says "this is my design, materials,and parts,and my availability for advice,,buy it and take it from here" And there is a customer that says their boundary is "I bought this,this and this and you are to be available for advice, but maybe the relationship can be two way and you can take my advice"

Large business have a cheery person in customer relations to isolate the decision maker from this difference of assumptions. Maybe every small business can have an owner that can run a business,design a product,be an employer,and have the 100% consistant grace to handle customers advice but I think that is a big expectation.

To put things into perspective,Necky Kayaks was selling their high quality production boats for years with just a wedge shaped slab of minicell and a back band like the Pygmy one. I thought it was the most abysmal seat as well as a cheesy cost cutting feature in a $2200 kayak. The funny thing is that there are a lot of people that thought it was a great seat. I have yet to get into any boat that I did not have to modify at some point for my comfort.

On a related tangent I find the thermarest kayak seat (not the flat "SportSeat" not to be particularly comfortable, and the regular "SportSeats" are an excellent first aid device for numb butt on any seat as well as a temporary paddle float with two taped together.

have fun on whichever boat you decide to assemble