A lot of other people argued what I would've argued, so I'll just say one thing that isn't exactly original as Iron and maybe others have said similar things, but I feel should be emphasized. This is mostly directed at Matt and those who agree with him...
The designer has the responsibility to make a ride feel like he wants. If the ride seems like it doesn't have "character" then that's the designer's fault, not the design style. I agree fully that many Elementary tracks feel cookie cutter. That's partially because there really weren't that many options for shaping before FVD, which opens tons of shaping opportunities that simply weren't there before. But still, it's up to the designer to work around that, and most don't.
Real designers *only* use tools. I'm confident that every one of the even decent designers, and 99.99% of the tiny companies use some sort of calculus, it's almost mandatory. None just modify curves randomly and visually.
Therefore, if designing for this program is applied to real life, the "wrong" solution (notice wrong is in quotations because it's used *very* loosely) would be to handbuild.
Yes, it's a game, but the point is, why restrict the most realistic way of building, in a game where the main focus is realism?
gazag, not to be mean just to give you some perspective, I'd like to give you some reasons why I don't think you're one of the better designers and why other people may agree with me based on what you said in that post. I'll use your latest B&M hyper as reference:
1. Shaping is unrealistic.
2. Forces are ridiculous. -1.9 g's? Surely some of the best designers know B&M most likely hasn't exceeded -1, or likely even come close to that value. That's WAY too high.
3. Imperfect trackwork... some little pumps here and there, trackwork isn't always fluent like pretty much every element on all newer B&Ms.
4. Randomly bad landscaping in places (Noob hills). Terraformer is part of NL, and should be rated as part of your ride experience (though a smaller part than trackwork ofcourse.
There are some more things but most could be included in the above categories. The things I noted are things where I'm sure of what I'm saying, more than them being an opinion like say originality can be at times, and things like that.
Personally I won't go out on a limb and say that I'm the best designer, because A: that would invite others to harshly critique my work here (which is actually fine with me, because I design my rides to the point where I feel as if people shouldn't have much that could be negative other than opinions to say about them), and B: I respect several other very talented designers, and I know for sure that I don't blow them away so I won't say that I'm better than them, that'd be dumb and disrespectful on my part.
You were asked who you thought was the best, so there's nothing wrong with answering that question truthfully. Just wanted to let you know why some people may disagree like you said, instead of leaving you in the dark, where it's pretty hard to improve.
I will also let you know that I would've definately liked the ride a lot had it been built to be more realistic in trackwork, as the layout was pretty well done overall. Just as an example, it's ok to go really steep with hills as your second one did, however you must make sure to shape it "like B&M would if they designed a similar element" and maintain typical forces.