RE: Best general design?
If you made one of each - in same wing area and same wing loading - you would be hard pressed to tell any of em apart .in how they fly
The newer offerings are lighter and typically have been stretched and massaged to make em fly better - so much so that they are rapidly becoming just like the old pattern planes .
guys used to superimpose one successful pattern design over the other -to compare em.-I think I once saw 6 or more of em all layed over each other - not enough difference to stick in your eye .