The lowered hood is a freestyle (flat water) thing. Lower center of gravity, if your doing hood tricks your balance is much better. With a stock hood, your weight is up higher, which makes balance much more difficult. With Rolls, it puts the center of gravity closer to its longitudinal axis, makes the ski rotate better and faster. As far as stock hood verses lowered and water intake. Each hood is different. Depends on location of the hoses. Stock hood lets a good bit of water in. Idok had my old stock hood with a Blowsion liner, that was the driest setup I have had yet. 3 Wammer Hoods, 1 Blowsion hood. 1 Mod stock. Wammers are decent, Blowsion sucked at keeping water out.