I don't mind Gateway. I haven't received a hate message from Davey Mac in a while, so I'll go ahead and say something that he will misunderstand if he sees it.
My daughter was throwing an Element yesterday and a guy on our card laughed about it; to him an Element is junk. There was a run of Elements a number of years ago (2005? 2006?) in the Evolution Pro Line plastic that were blood red, stable and awesome. I threw them. A bunch of guys I knew threw them.
After some time after those were out I ran into a guy I knew that was Gateway sponsored. I knew he threw those blood red Elements, but he didn't have any in his bag. He said he was out, beat up his last one and couldn't find anything that flew anywhere close to the old blood red ones. This was before the mixed bag goofiness, so he had to throw Gateway. He had no mid. He was throwing Wizards for his shorter mid shots and Sabres for his longer mid shots.
There just seemed to be too many of those types of things. Blood red Elements, baby blue Illusions, white first run Infernos...there always seemed to be one certain run that you had to have, one run that was better than the rest. Gateway was for the advanced disc geek. You had to know what a really stable Spirit looked like before you bought a Spirit because they all were not that beefy. Even if you did know what you were looking for, you might not be able to find it.
The putters are not immune. There was about a year of crap Wizards with high shoulders that just were not as stable as a Wizard should be. You could avoid them if you knew what you were looking for, but you had to know what you were looking for. Most disc golfers don't.
So can Gateway make great discs? Sure. They have in the past. Probably will again. The problem is that they never seem to learn what they are doing right so they can duplicate it. They could never make any more baby blue Illusions; if they could they would have sold them. They never could make any more blood red Elements.
The old joke was if you found a Gateway disc you liked, buy a stack because you might never see them again. It's too close to the truth to be a joke, though.
I'd love to see that company become more consistent and really make it. I'm not holding my breath.