From what I've seen since the whole ProTouring stuff started, is that many people are used to dealing with GM (especially) and some Ford vehicles, which have front coil springs. That's what they consider "normal", so the Chrysler torsion bar set-up is "weird" to them. They look at them as a hindrance more than not. Taking up way too much space in the chassis, to them. But space they won't be using anyway (with the issue being "header clearance", typically). AND considering that many street rod chassis (think "Early Ford V-8") have even more space issues, requiring block-hugger header/exhaust manifolds, to me, these issues might tend to indicate a lack of real problem solving capabilities or knowledge what other segments of the auto hot rodding hobby have to deal with.
Perhaps this is something of a "generational issue"? Where it takes a front end with coil-overs and 8 degrees of positive caster just to go to the corner store for some bread? Or a cross-bolted main engine block to do the same? Perhaps they need to get out of their comfort zone, take off their blinders, and understand why some of the newer stuff is not always better? They might not know that Chrysler's front end geometry (negative camber gain for the outside front wheel in a corner dates back (in Chrysler products) at least to the 1957 model year, for example. Ages before Ford and GM started to use it!
One other thing, to me, is that with the proper tools, a torsion bar is pretty easy to change. But they have their quirks which must be known about and respected. PLUS the rear mount crossmember is allegedly a very low-stress part of the car, unlike the front crossmember on a coil spring suspension vehicle where all of the spring stresses are concentrated in that ONE area where the control arms are located.
To me, the reason that many rack-and-pinion steering cars were noted to have better steering response is that they are mostly fron-wheel drive, with strut suspensions, so with all of the front cornering, braking, acceleration, being initiated in that ONE area, the front structure of those cars need to be stiffer and more substantial to do all of that. As CAR LIFE magazine noted in a road test of a '65 Satellite, the stiffer unibody construction makes steering response better due to the stiffer structure the steering components is attached to. A side issue is that they are "rear steer" and do more perfect Ackerman angles of the front wheels in a turn.
Y'all enjoy . . .
CBODY67
