Plarail in its present state - What are your thoughts?

I think the only mistake they made with PlaRail Advance was to discontinue it when they did. It was very innovative and appealed to the Japanese market especially due to it looking more realistic and also being nearly 'N Gauge'. Being backward compatible with the original PlaRail track was a masterstroke as they had a ready made market for it without having to worry about selling sets to the consumer, although of course there were sets available when it was in its hey-day.

I've not yet seen the new 'real' version apart from the odd picture as I'm not really into PlaRail these days, but anything that makes them money can also help subsidise the continuation of standard PlaRail even if they are taking the FP approach and dumbing them down now for the kiddy market - which I agree is a big mistake as shown by FP.