The bypass valve isn't an airfilter, it's a passive safety valve that sits around hoping to never be needed. It should have a fairly static life under the hood of the car.

Looking at the design of most conical tube style intakes, that I will now nickname them TUBE-TAKES, why do they need to be mandrel bent metal for the pipes?

The OE intake tube is plenty big, and very flexable, hey our engines rotate on motor mounts the intake tube should be able to do that too. The OE's can but I don't think these TUBE-TAKES can, at least not well enough. My AEM CAI has one, sad little rubber isolation mount. It's always bothered me.

In all honesty how long have tube-takes been on the market not long, have many owners had one on a car for 4-5-10years yet? Likely the sad truth is the demographic is likely one that won't own the cars long enough to have them fail, I'm likely a minority.

I also don't see why the filter needs to be outside the car? Why not put the new higher flow filter into a box (isolated from engine heat) and suck the cold air to it. Comptech has the better idea, too bad their line is limited. And comptech's design would be much better if they allowed for some type of bypass as well. Even the new TSX icebox could become a gaint straw.

Just to be clear also I'm not trying to be the Ralph Nadar of intakes now, but I've become very miffed since this failure. Look at the market for the 4cyl 6th gen, you have ebay knock offs, AEM, Injen and who else really making these things, why? And why aren't they built more like an OEM style? The OEM's don't perform because of the sound isolation systems employed the tube and filter location are usually ideal from the mfg's? Why don't aftermarket systems just resolve the filter-air flow issue?