and a SIMM socket designed specifically with tower units in mind
No, they simply ran out of 90° SIMM sockets, thats all, but you can call that a feature if you want
On the subject of the relationship of P5 and DCE: There was absolut no connection between those two up to the time DCE bought the assets of the bancrupt P5. DCE got part of its productionfacilitys from P5.
Rumor has it that they didn`t pay the production streets in full and therefor BPlan (which consists of quite a lot ex P5 employees) was allowed to use it free of charge, but that is another story.
In general the quality of DCE cards is lower then those of P5. That doesn`t me they break down easyly, no, but they are poorer crafted. For example I got a DCE Blizzard 1260 that had the coinbatterie standing out quite well of the card. I had to bend it down to get the card in the trapdoor (this card still had a 90$ Simm socket) a B1240 I got only ran at 24MHz as they ran out of 50MHz crystals so the stuck a 48MHz one on it and I once had a BlizzardPPC that missed the specially shaped cooling block and had the fan mounted directly on the 603 (probably ran out of those cooling blocks too)
A B2060 had the 68k Socket soldered in with the pins only half way through at one side.
To make one thing clear I dont`t blame them for that. There was no other choice with the shrinking marked but to cut cost and that will show in the end in the product quality.
In general they work as good as the P5 cards but don`t look that "professional" made.
The thing with the easy breaking CSPPCs is that the original P5 cards were designed to the limit (such a big thing as a 68k socked as an SMD part, good grief) adding to this the slightly poorer productionquality and you end up where you are now.
