You summed it up there: “any more or less well-designed than other SS amps of the period. ”

Most solid state MI products from that period were crap: only a small number were any good for their intended purpose. They were designed by electronics people who had never played in bands and were isolated from the world of popular music. Engineers who listened to Mantovani, or in Benton Harbor, Michigan, probably Myron Floren.

A bunch of uff-da’s from Michigan-and not Motor City rebels like Ted Nugent, but small town and rural people. Ham radio, they knew. TV-service grade scopes and color bar generators, you bet. Rock and roll, not so much, eh.

Hartley Peavey’s stuff worked well in churches and for country players, because he knew those people and markets. Mike Matthews, the old horndog notorious for harassing women at NAMM shows and his two-BandAids-and-a-cork-clothed models extolling Freedom Amps, knew East Coast rockers because he was one. The solid state combo amps with the 15″ Altecs that were 604s without the center horn made for pedal steel vendors…worked great for pedal steel. But the rest of the stuff was designed by engineers for engineers and was just not what worked in the world of rock music, especially not in those days of Zep/Rush/Floyd, fusion, and Lynyrd Skynyrd southern boogie.

When Devo and Blondie and whoever it was that did “The Safety Dance” came around, some of that stuff fit in, but by then it was too late.