Pat, thanks for your kind comments! We have to shrink the holes in the cage so that we meet PDGA Championship standards and our basket can be used in any level event. We've looked at a couple ways of doing this, and we're going to end up adding spokes instead of an extra ring. So the basket that you've all seen will hardly be any different than the finished model (probably 14 spokes vs the current 12). I was merely using the wedgie reference as a potential reason for the rule change that we have to meet. I do not know the exact reason that the specs were changed.
As far as how the Vortex fairs with the placements of spin putt you asked about: You will get no spit out on either. A putt on the Vortex will never impact the center pole the way that you're used to on current baskets. The inner chains act to cradle the disc and absorb all of it's remaining energy, preventing it from touching the center post with any speed, if at all.
I also have been a victim of the hop out, as you put it. This isn't a problem on the Vortex because there isn't anything with enough tension to hit that low. There is not sleeve rising above the bottom plane of the basket that you could bounce off of, and the outer chains have such a low tension that they will drop you straight down, not bounce you off. If you somehow did manage to bounce off the bottom plane of the basket, your disc would have to hop 8.5" up to get over the rim, not to mention back through the droop of the outer chains. Not going to happen.
