I am an obnoxiously careful shopper and the local distributors are way high on totos, dont care to bring them in, and would freak out if you wanted to return one for cosmetic reason. Some do not know what a toto is at all. Most are on the edge of bankruptcy anyway.
I know well that the word FREE is meaningless, but my broken drake eco came in for 203$ at my DOOR, and a trip to a real toto dealer would have cost me at least 203$ in time, gas and mileage. Then the [truly] free broken one got used without the front skirt, with a unknown tank siliconed to the drake cripple in the shop john, which was a huge upgrade for the guys. The replacement got shipped free for a 3 minute phone call. [no need to even talk to UPS] Show me how you can beat that price and service...
I know the midwest well, and your supply chain is much closer than here in California where I can see out my bedroom window for hundreds of miles and will never see a street or house light. When the family from Wisconsin visits, they say we must have a different solar system, as they never saw so many stars before.
Can you get a eco Drake at your door for $203 delivered without tax and ordered at midnight - even in the midwest?
1. You paid $209 according to your first post, now it is $203? Are you negotiating with yourself?
2. As for what I can order for, it's been a year but if I chose the bowl without CEFIONTECT it would have been close to your range of prices, $214 was the quote I had on the 1.6 gpf with elongated bowl. This based on the slightly lower of prices from two local, non-Toto dealer vendors. Don't know what the round bowl would have cost, should have been less. I eventually went with the CEFIONTECT and that was a substantial adder, but well worth it.
3. Ordering at midnight? I don't care what time of day or day of week you order since actual shipping still occurs during normal business hours.
4. Didn't have any trouble on a tank swap for one of my 3 because of the previously mentioned deformation. I used the tank until the new one arrived.
5. I'm still puzzled about the cognitive disconnect of blaming Toto for the shipper busting the toilet.
6. As for stars/views, I'm in a metro region right now, but astronomy is a hobby of mine so I've been places you've probably only dreamed of with regards to atmospheric transparency. On Mauna Kea at ~9,000 feet I spotted all my 8th magnitude reference stars in Hercules, naked eye...and I was groggy/non-acclimated and my eyes were shot since I had been diving morning and evening all week. I could actually trace the dust disk of the ecliptic--it was like having a big scale model of the solar system with a "you are here" pointer at your feet. In West Texas I could routinely see 7 to 7.5 mag at my observing sites. I grew up in locations of very low population density, so while your location is likely quite good, I doubt it is anything I haven't seen before. In reference to the topic at hand, regardless of location, there are distributors in local population centers that one will need to go through periodically. With Fresno, being about 50 miles away by road, you've got some fairly bright light sources for my tastes. Last time I checked Fresno was a lot closer to a deepwater port than any place I've lived in the Midwest...so if I was going to give someone a lecture about supply chain length for an imported toilet component...
The one thing I agree about from an earlier post, is the shape of the outlet on toilets being counterintuitive. I would expect a streamlined horn to be most efficient hydraulically. I doubt you would see 100' of flow resistance though. With ~3" opening I would expect maybe 100 equivalent lengths...about 25 feet. Did a quick check against Crane's nomographs and it works out to 20 feet for an inner lip, so I made a good guess. But these outlets seem to work without problems. They are likely easier to reliably pour and fire--and without the weight penalty of a smooth solid piece there.
