Yeah I hear what you are saying pieEater.
But I think like devilsyam says we all have to make up our own minds.
I'm only quoting what the guy in the bike shop said. I'm sure he's correct about the failures they have had, I mean why would he fib, but whether he's right about the manual tensioner I dunno. And I thought bikes had been running with auto tensioners for decades? Dunno. Makes you wonder why they haven't perfected them yet.
At the moment I'm not convinced that the auto tensioner really does pose a big problem (famous last words)
It's not exactly a massive trail of destruction (yet). Has Pilgrim just been struck by lightening twice?
The other thought I had was, if you do have a tensioner issue, and on top of that you end up with bent valves;
Well how much are the valves, oil seals, shims etc? I had valve and camshaft issues years and years ago with a car. The parts didn't cost much and a bit of DIY and all was sorted again. Oh hydraulic tappets - easy peasy of course (used to get the odd failure with them though).
It's not really catastrophic, unless a valve doesn't want to bend and messes up a piston, maybe that's on the catastrophic side.
Naw, it's the catastrophic price of bike parts that really worries us, isn't it? Catastrophic impact on the wallet for fixing an engine that only just really a little messed up. Grrrrrr, bloody parts prices.