Michel Talon wrote:
...
Here clubs have bought large quantities of ASK23 which are
flying bricks compared to LS4s and at similar prices.
...

This is not the exact reality. The total number of ASK23
registered in France is 6, 3 of them (F-CGCV, F-CGCZ and
F-CHAS) are in my club (Centre Aéronautique de Beynes),
the 3 others are at Moret/Episy. Of coures their performance
is not competitive compared to LS4s or any other standard
ship of the same generation with retracting gear. But calling
it a flying brick is execessive. The performance is similar
to the ASK21 (I agree the ASK21 is a little better), the problem
is mainly in their low wing loading, which is also one of
the purpose of their design, in order to make them easy to
handle and very similar to the ASK21. I agree that the price
is excessive, as almost everybody probably does, this is
what made Schleicher stop the production. However this is a
good illustration of the fact that the price is not directly
related to performance. These gliders are very well built,
with expensive materials (honeycomb sandwich), in order to
withstand to the mishandling of beginners, and this has a cost
that can't be reduced.