If you go back and read my last post on the “car” analogy, you’ll see that we agree. Racers use what wins races. Period. They don’t get “style” points for the size of their rims. The point is, when performance matters, you use what performs. Similarly, racers in downhill and street luge and slalom skateboarding have all found that having a lot of urethane on wheels works. Larger hubs are used sparingly as they tend to suppress the amount that a wheel can deform and contact the asphalt. You can have a super wide contact patch but if the wheel is on edge (as it tends to be because of the lean-steer nature of a skateboard when cornering), it can’t provide very good traction. Cars are also trying to maximize the amount of contact and down-force on its wheels, and the more power that you provide your wheels with, the more important it is to provide traction. That’s true both for acceleration and deceleration. I seems as if most race cars have figured out how to effectively cool their brakes so I’m not sure why the “bigger rims / bigger brakes” approach provides much value. In other words, if the tire is like ice, why do you need a better brake when it slips so much that can’t stop a car?
Unlike the big rims in low profile tires, hub motors “free-roll” more and provide less braking so you can’t put “less braking” as a con to having high profile skateboard wheels. Since you can have a lot of urethane with EITHER a direct drive system (Carvon) or belt/pulley/gear reduction systems, I’d say that’s a PRO.