In regards to the favouritism/geographic region thing I think AT presents the most balanced view you're going to get from the United States, straight from the editorial on the AT page:
"This year, more than 400 surveys were mailed. With our biggest response ever, 25 percent came from the Northeastern portion of the United States, both the Southern United States and
north central states provided 23 percent of the votes, and the west coast tallied in at 22
percent. The remaining 7 percent were mailed in from international correspondents."
That's about as balanced as you can get IMO. This kind of survey naturally tends to not have many international coasters make the list simply because most people living over here haven't been to Britain, Germany, Spain, etc.
I was also glad to see Magnum finally fall and I think SROS @ SFNE has a good chance of dethroning MF if a few more people get on it this year because of it's high ranking....MF winning this time around was almost a given because almost every enthusiast made the trip out to CP last year to ride the Force, we'll see if it's ranking starts to settle after the initial shock/hype is through with. I'd almost gurantee you that of the people who've been on both MF & SROS @ SFNE a majority voted for SROS but Millie simply has had more riders who took the survey. Similarly I think the Legend will continue to climb given some time though the #5 ranking is certainly respectable.
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SRM 2001: No Lights! No Brakes! No Bell?!