This is a difficult question to try to answer, but will give a few thoughts, I will go though the list from the list you mentioned:
Flowstone: Played around with it some, but not for me. I do like object oriented things, but sometimes having objects to do things like x+y=z starts to get messy. I also some of their integration with the system/screen lacking. For example, earlier I hacked up my own versions of a terminal program in VB and then tried to make one in flowstone. I ran into issues like, I want to be able to resize my window and have the controls move/resize… Easy in VB could not figure out in FS. Want my list of comm ports reflect the ports on my computer at the time. Easy in VB, could not do in FS… Note: they do have a lot of other nice things, just not for me, especially at the price they were asking for it, when things like VB were free.
Note Devon did some nice work with it, with the Free Arm controller, sequencer, hex calibration…
Powerpod: Was a great product for the day, it allowed you to choose the Hex robot (only the old ones) and leg design and it would choose all of the right configuration stuff for that robot. However it was never updated for the Phoenix and probably has not been kept up to date with some of the later changes to the Basic Micro IDE.
RIOS: Have not tried it. My Arm was attached to rover, but later removed. Thought about getting a copy of it to try out so I might be able to answer others questions, but never did. Potentially you would sell more copies of it, if the price was dropped significantly…
SSC-32 Sequencer: A nice program that has been used for many different robots. I did use it earlier to play around with sequences for a BRAT then I wrote my own version in VB… Also good for Hex robots, however for most of them I ended up using Zenta (Kåre’s) PEP worksheet to generate sequences and then maybe SEQ to download. But later created my own downloads…
Hardware wise: I have played around with a bunch of different Micro-controller platforms, and still trying to check out a few more…
SSC-32 - Is a great Servo controller for normal type servos (IE non Robotis servos and the like…). I hope the USB version comes out soon as it has some nice new features, like more IO, XBee, …
BB2/BAP28 - Nice platform for entry level robots like brats and the like. It is nice that it has feedback items, like sound, leds, buttons.
ARC32 - Liked the board, which it had sound, usually just plugged in one of the same speakers that is on a BB2 into a Servo extension cable and plugged it in to an IO pin of my choice. Nice thing is that it had more program space, ran faster and two USARTS. Also it had enough hardware support to run the servos of an hexapod. Like the BAP28 you usually program the board using their basic, but you can also program it in C. I just wish they provided support libraries that supported many of things that you did in basic, like servos, USarts… Wrote my own, but…
BBorduino - Again a nice entry level Arduino platform, that makes it easy to plug in servos and devices plus has built-in sound, leds… However it is still an Atmega 328 you can easily use up the program space on the processor on hexapods and the like and the hardware components like USARTS(1) is limited. Wish there was an Arduino Mega class board, or potentially an Arduino Due (ARM) or Pic32 based board, like chipKIT Max32, which have a lot more capabilities.
In addition to maybe coming out with your own more advanced boards for the robots, it might be nice if you built and sold some adapter plates or the like that adapted some other standard boards like Arduino UNO and Arduino Megas to the Lynxmotion form factor. Note: these adapters will most likely not be useable for all of the different robots, but could probably made to work on a lot of them.
Again not sure if I answered anything here.
Kurt
