I've just been reading on Wikipedia about Technic trending to studless beams. It shows how long it's been since I bought a Technic set that I didn't know about this. I did my a Mindstorms NXT when it was fairly new, and found the studless beams rather inconvenient. I think what they should do is make studded beams BUT make them 8mm tall (same as the width). (That's not counting the height of the studs.)