Why no gearbox in current sets?

[DarkShadow73]

Think its mainly because Lego has gone over to all PF now for larger sets that would have gearboxes, those older sets are had no power, except for you might be able to add, like the age old 8720 Motor Kit, but it really didn't do much, you usually (8448 here) had to jack up the car and watch the functions move with the motor attached with the battery box outside the model...

I thing it's because of the fact that a gearbox like the ones in the supercars you've mentioned dont add much to the playabillity of a set.

Lots of lego sets have switch-boxes (which are kind of gearboxes) to handle various functions.

[SNIPE]

No, I don't think gearboxes should be replaced but rethought of, for example:

I have a gearbox that moves the shifter barrel automatically however rather than using the 12 tooth gears with a clutch inside in which the shifter barrel meshes it meshes the main gears axle hole with the frictionless axle hole of the clutch barrel with the help of a motor. The clutch barrel still has fine teeth but the barrel is only 2 studs wide unlike the "old" gearboxes which use the 12 tooth gears with clutch indie, which is about 4 studs wide. The second motor in the automatic shifter moves the shifting claw over a certain barrel.

For more technical aspects, the gearbox can have a program created by the user in robotC or something like that to suit his needs such as when 'gear E' changes, what the final gear ratio is, etc.

So it covers a range of lego fans, the only hard part is, the gears, even the internal ones as part of the clutch barrel brick have to be aligned to the right teeth so that the axle on one column is not at a different rotated axle, which will cause the shifter barrel to jam up.

This is not so big of gearbox, it is around 8x6 studs. and is not very high either.

A creation with a motor is not the same as one with a gearbox, a motor does not have variable output torque like the different gears of a gearbox.