You found some fake news.
My experience with transmissions was much different.. 12 years of lake michigan boating in a heavy tank , the Huber 1200 is the only thing that never ever gave me any issues.
Over heat them or too much throttle in reverse is a sure way to kill em.
I had a big coolers and never gave it throttle in reverse .

Cats load a drive differently than a deep V. I went ten years with bravos 1:36 ratio without a problem behind blown 509’s in all sorts of water….Lake Michigan, Ozarks, South Florida and the Keys.
Never touched them and typically around 200 hours a year of use.

OB cats may be priced higher initially, but maintenance and fuel cost will be so much lower and it will be easier to resell later.
One of the best priced OB cats out there and owned by a friend who upgraded to a 44 MTI.

2018 Mti 340X 8899 Lake of the Ozarks (bigthundermarine.com)

assuming you had an american offshore, then why were they blowing ssm 2 that often on chriscat? Ssm2 are basically a stronger than bravo trs upper ans ssm 2 lower...
were these drives so weak? Always surprised to see AO using bravos and not hear about drives blowing off, just like you mentionned... whats your take on this?

No idea on the speedy two issues…those are pretty old. Most race boats were set with 3’s from that era and a very few with 5’s. I wasn’t making a ton of horsepower and tried to drive sensible. A sheared propshaft and a prop to the bottom of the lake was my only issue with bravos on that boat. Maybe I had just a lucky set?

That is a beautiful boat and would ultimately be the best for what we do, but with 3 other boats at the house I am not wanting to be 400K into the boat. If I were the MTI would be on my list. A few of my neighbors have them and they are sick boats.

T'he 32 Skater with 525 and sixes was a bullet proof setup. It was also boring. Not enough power. It would run 115 mph but would take too long to get there. All six drives need a transmission. I used Huber and BAM transmissions. With big power over 1000 in a cat they let go from abuse in rough water. It got to where I would rebuild them myself. I started with fast outboard cats and wanted to go faster with each boat. I grew tired of the maintenance with fast I/O cats. I now enjoy my 36 cat with Mercury V8 outboards.