Great post Dan
Here's some food for thought about the temperature/gradient issue. You hear much thrown around like, 92 hot side, 82 cool side, etc. Does anyone know the average temperatures for the area in Africa that balls come from?(Togo, Benin, Ghana). Here's a link to average temps for that region over the entire year:
http://www.weather.com/outlook/trave...omnav_business

As you can see temperatures vary quite a bit. The AVG daytime is upper 80's - meaning it could be warmer or cooler. The AVG nightime is mid 70's or so - meaning it could be warmer or cooler. And during the winter there it only gets to the low 80's and at night can get below low 70's - yet the seem to survive and thrive quite well under these conditions.

Not taking any sides here, just throwing out some different ideas.


Marc