Some things to keep in mind when reading all the reg hype.
Pretty much any first stage made today will supply all the gas 2 divers can use so the fact that flow through pistons (most SP and Atomic) CAN flow more gas is a mute point in the piston vs diaphragm debate. Another key point that most divers do not understand and shops certainly will not tell you is 99% of the performance of any reg set is determined by the second stage. What that means is you go for the better second stage and ignore the hype about the first. Top of the line models tend to have a lot of flashy bits and lots of "features" that run up the cost but very rarely are they worth much. If you dig into the internal working of regs what you will find is the first stages of compairable designs are almost identical, fact is Aqualung uses the exact same parts inside of all of it's diaphragm regs, the only difference is the look of the body. In other words, a bottom end AL Titan and a top of the line Legend are exactly alike inside....which is what matters so from a performance/quality standpoint. Internally, they are the same reg....why pay more for the reg. Second stages are even worse. If you look at the design what you will find the manuf will have 2 or 3 base models which they add bit and pieces to in order the up the sale price, many times they are the same second stage with a little different front cover. A top end Titan second is the same as a bottom end Legend with different cover plates. Why pay more for the name stamped on the cover?