Should Pete Rose be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame? How about Raphael Palmerio or Mark McGuire? These are tough questions that sports columnists and announcers seem to need to debate for weeks and even years at a time.

It took the editors of Powerboat Reports 20 minutes of debate and discussion to come up with our first-ballot Hall of Famers for our annual Gear of the Year awards. Hey, we didn’t have to struggle with controversial issues like gambling and steroids. Our inductees were clearly worthy of the award. To make the list, the product had to be a great performer in its test. It had to be practical—and…