Good post Mike and you kind of point out an important distinction between current 3-piece boots and traditional 2-piece race-inspired boots. My Head Raptors are ideal for what I refer to as "foot skiing" whereas the Flexon/Krypton promotes more "leg skiing".
We've discussed this before on the PMTS forum, but for the benefit of the Peak Skiers here's a quick version of my thoughts. Narrow 2-piece race inspired boots fit the foot very closely and are quite responsive in transmitting foot movements to your skis. Foot movements are the foundation of PMTS skiing. Harald has pointed out in his videos and online that you should not need to tighten the top of a race flex boot tightly on your leg. He keeps his top buckle fairly loose. One of the reasons I LOVE my Raptors is that they have the double-power Booster strap as OEM. I trimmed away the plastic at the top front of the cuff so that my Booster strap is only against the liner, thus the strap "connects" my lower leg to the rear spine of the boot (where 2-piece shells get their forward/rearward flex support). The double-power Booster lets me keep the top buckle loose while providing a really nice progressive flex. The progressive forward flex provided by this setup is as good (if not better) than a Flexon/Krypton with their separate plastic tongue. There is no "hard stop" when flexing forward with my Raptor setup. The Booster strap just gets progressively more taught until it no longer stretches any further.
I find that the Flexon/Krypton boots need to be tightened around the lower leg to maintain sufficient control of your skis. When your boot is tightened around your lower leg your foot movements aren't nearly as efficient or effective in producing tipping power. Thus these boots turn you into a "leg skier" where you're using the gross motor movements of your legs to achieve ski tipping. I think the reason for this is the buckle placement on these boots. Although the ankle buckle (or Dynalink in Krypton terms) seems like a good idea for pulling your foot back into the pocket, I've found that having 2 buckles (just above the ankle and over the instep) combined with a stronger lower shell provide much better holding power for my feet. Now I have a low instep so it's quite possible that a different foot shape may not have quite the same issues in a Flexon/Krypton, but I'd be surprised if this isn't the same case for a lot of skiers.
My Raptors fit my feet so well that I can leave the buckles completely undone with just the Booster strap tightened and I can ski just fine. In fact when I ski relaxed with my kids that is exactly how I keep my boots.
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