This. Many, many times over.
The IEP is not a step-change from what went before. Compare how cars have advanced in the last 40 years and IEP does not represent the same improvement, though there is a strong argument that the HST was ahead of its time. HST WAS a leap in quality at the time: a 125mph, air-conditioned train with air suspension unleashed on what was in large part the 90mph, Mark 1 steam-heat railway. Enthusiasts may not have liked them at the time, but to the normal passenger they were a revelation.
You are Stuart Baker and I claim my tenner!!!!
Step forward in technology? Errrrrr, no. They are slower on diesel than the trains they replace, for a start. Electro-diesel (not this bi-mode DfT-speak) trains are nothing new: Class 73 debuted in 1962 and the EMD FL9 dates from the 1950s. SNCF has had its electro-diesel AGCs since 2004.
So, here we go again. Yet more accusations against these trains on the grounds of things they were never supposed to achieve.
"Step-change from what went before"... I must have missed that bit in the specification. The IEP project was set up to develop a replacement for the HST, a next generation, if you like, in the same way that the TGV in France and ICE in Germany have gone through several generations since the 1980s - just that being Britain, we do things in a stop-start manner, not an evolutionary one.
The TGV and ICE were transformational for services in their home countries when they first appeared, just like the HST here - I don't recall anyone berating subsequent models of those trains for not providing a step-change there.
You could argue that the 390s were a step-change from what went before them on the WCML, 125mph and tilt-wise, but when it comes to the passenger environment on board? I don't think so. Such as, er, seats next to a large bit of plastic panelling, rather than a window... supposedly a crime unique to the Class 800.
I rate the 800 interior as a distinct improvement on GWR HSTs and a few other things I can think of, especially something beginning with V.
How many more times do we have to hear the one about them being slower on diesel than the trains they replace? The DfT-ordered IEP 800s were never intended to operate above 100mph in normal service on diesel power - from the end of next year they will only be doing so for a few miles on the route to Bath, which should end once they get finally on with wiring all the way to Bristol. And a bit of the Berks & Hants, which will mostly be full-power-all-the-time Class 802-operated and where 110mph is the limit.