Maybe I was more correct than I had believed? (how's that for proper English),..... right in the first place?
I had always hated ..... or maybe just disliked a few things about 3 rail. The large claw coupler was in the top 3. I always dumped them as I convert stuff to 2 rail anyways. Now that I am actually trying out the claws running 3 rail, I am surprised at the results.
Now I have equipment from a lot of different manufacturers and over many years. There is a surprising amount of poor set ups to me. I have many pieces that the couplers actually droop on. Some are even mounted at different heights. How about that on higher end brass passenger cars!
To make things worse, there's a detent in the straight position, that forces the whole coupler downward on engines as the couplers are drawn into curves. So the train adds resistance in the curves and the drooping coupler assemblies bow out and dump the train. WOW. That is fun. That's my biggest problem in running different brands of G scale outside. Smacked me here again.
I thought I had issues when I learned that converting to KD couplers meant getting the heights correct and fixing dips or bumps in the track and bench work on my O scale 2 rail layout. I now see that even with an extra oversized claw, it can't make up for these same variances. If I have to correct many things, I may as well flip my 3 rail stuff over to KDs as well? To be fair, much of my new equipment works right out of the box. I do enjoy the electro couplers on the engines. I may just stay with them and fix the problem child ones. If they start failing as they wear in, out they will go! I do read posts of them popping open.
I never knew with the positive posts over the years that the claws were just a Band-Aid to a re-occurring issue through all the scales of toy trains. They are so much over scale, they match the size of the stock (oversized) G scale ones. Coming from my background, always switching my other scales to KDs as a standard, I struggle to imagine why these couplers are still used so widely. I really think that most guys may just want to leave it be.
My rant is over. It's just settling in that the same issue follows me every where I go with these toys. A coupler twice the size it should be, can't fix sloppy design, workmanship, or materials.
1) a pair of cars and the one on the left droops just slightly. Just slightly annoying. The larger coupler makes it only a visual problem.
2) the tender on my older 3rd rail Allegheny matched to a car that happens to have a coupler pointed slightly upwards? What are the odds that it's the car at the front of a long train?
(no, I didn't add the zip tie. I bought it that way!)
that same coupler goes down even more when drawn into a turn!
!, so the oversize Lionel ones looked proper to me. Kinda like in children's cartoons were the head is drawn way oversize because it is what children notice most. Also, 95% of my couplers function as they should. The others get tie wraps or become shelf queens. Finally, ease of use is more important to me. With just a jab of my finger I can uncouple my cars. 
