I've pondered this for years and still can't make up my mind - and I've gone the pods / airbox / bellmouth / start again routes more times than I care to remember. From my own experience I've found VMs a doddle to tune in when changing the air intake whilst I don't think I've ever got CVs to work entirely satisfactorily.
From a performance point of view I'm more inclined to think I imagined any gains by dropping the box but I may be wrong.
In this month's CB mag there's an interesting observation about bellmouths: when the inlet valve closes the vapour that was heading towards the combustion chamber, through the carb, 'bounces' backwards. (You can see this big time on a tuned 2-stroke when the ports / reeds / discs close -literally spitting fuel out of the carb at low revs - different situation I know but the same sort of thing). When the 'sucking' starts again on the next cycle, this vapour is drawn back in, though some of it will have been lost to the atmosphere. The theory is that a bellmouth acts as a 'holding area' for some of this lost fuel mix but that the ultimate solution is a large capacity airbox.
I'm inclined to go along with this on the evidence that I have run bikes reasonably well with the airbox attached but no filter inside, whereas if I took the box off the thing would hardly run at all.
Having concluded, I think, that I'd rather stick with the airbox I do have to say that those filters on Renobruce's gleaming motor do look rather nice.
Wally
I agree with your take on the bellmouth/velocity stacks. I have experimented quite extensively with 2 stroke expansion chambers on motorcycles and go carts. There is strong evidence that sound waves are beneficial to performance and that differing lengths,dimensions and shapes can drastically change an engines torque curve and duration.
I believe that the combination of the bellmouths and the airbox do enhance the range of performance on our stock engines and that volume and resonance have major influences on there output.
The other way to control the amount of back flow through the carb and bellmouth is to extend the inlet tract length. The drawback to this solution is that the tuned length changes and lowers the maximium HP output to a lower rpm. The upside however is an increase in torque at lower rpms.
I personally wouldn't bother with pods unless I was building an engine for all out racing. The fact that they are more difficult to tune isn't an issue for me!
IMO, a strong/ broad torque range is more important for road use than maximum HP.