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You hit the nail right on the head before I could finish my post tonight. Orion with more airtime is just a faster Diamondback with different trains. A lot of folks online already compare the two heavily, so making them more alike would've only made it more underwhelming for guests IMO. Leviathan and Behemoth at Canada's Wonderland are in a very similar boat to Orion and Diamondback, and yet aren't as similar. The biggest difference between Leviathan and Orion seems to be the layout with the former's L-shape and the latter's straight out-and-back shape. They both have a near-90 degree wave turn, some airtime hills, a similar turnaround, and a tall brake run. Leviathan doesn't have a helix and Orion has one less airtime hill. I wonder if Orion could've done better if it was more L-shaped and 100' longer?

I see now where I was getting confused. I keep reading about ROI and take it to mean official numbers like attendance and ticket sales while others are talking about how Orion doesn't "live up to what it should have" in guest sentiment. The argument of enthusiasts vs. general public is well-beat, but I'd like to propose another question. If the upper management had the data on how well their 4 other giga coasters had done overall and what made guests enjoy them, why did they approve a design that a) barely reached the "correct" height to qualify as a giga, and b) did not include enough airtime/speed/forces? Guests enjoy the speed and forces of Millennium Force and Fury 325. The general public doesn't enjoy the forces of Pantherian as much, but the height and speed are still there. Also, would a few more feet on the drop really have made it any more intimidating for families? If Millennium Force can do so much with its 300' drop, why was Orion designed with the same 300' drop and yet apparently does so little? I'd love to read some thoughts as to how Orion could've had more airtime while only having 100' less track length than Leviathan.  I'd argue that Carowinds was in the same "family park" boat as Kings Island before they added Fury 325. Kings Island had an answer for most of their large coasters before Fury 325 was added as well with Afterburn/Banshee, Intimidator (Thunder Striker)/Diamondback, Thunder Road/The Racer, Nighthawk/Firehawk, Carolina Cyclone/KI's Vortex, and even Carolina Cobra (Flying Cobras)/Invertigo. Carowinds didn't have an answer for The Beast and Kings Island didn't have an answer for Carowinds' stand-up Vortex. What factors made one family park so different from the other? Is Kings Island going to continue to receive middle-of-the-road thrill coasters because it's a "family park", despite largely having the same lineup as Carowinds? If the guest sentiment is that Diamondback is better than Orion, why do we keep saying that the next KI coaster should be a family coaster with examples that pale in comparison to Diamondback?  Y'all can tell me that the overall cost was prohibitive (it was) and that the company didn't want to upstage Millennium Force and Fury 325 (that probably wasn't a factor but go off I guess), but I feel like there were more factors that led to Orion being stunted than have been put together in one post. I really want to understand all of the factors while unpacking these arguments and questions. I'll also maintain my thought that adding a nice inversion to Orion's layout would've made it more interesting for families and enthusiasts alike while differentiating itself from other gigas. 

This is part of what I found interesting with my earlier posts to this topic thread (and what I was attempting to point out). I thought the light strands came down much sooner while the Winterfest sign stayed up later. Last year I feel like it didn't come down until the beginning of March, though I could be misremembering that. There are also more lights turned off across the park tonight than usual. The big signs on the Coney Arcade are off as well as some of the lights in Planet Snoopy that are normally on. I also find it curious that there are still some Christmas lights on in the trees — those seem like they would be easy to unplug and cut their relatively minimal power usage out from the electric bills. I wish I'd gotten on sooner to see that potential ride arm on the pad! It's been a busy few days for me so I've really only been looking at the webcams at night. It looks like the crews didn't get all of the Snowflake Lake structure removed, which makes me wonder if they're coming back tomorrow morning or if they just wanted to get most of it down sooner.

Very much agree. Personally, I would say that the 5,300ft of track on Orion doesn't do a whole lot. Orion isn't a terrible ride. I enjoy it for what it is and it's a lot of fun. But a decent part of the reason I consider Diamondback, for example, to be much better than Orion is because Diamondback does more with its layout. Orion is 39ft longer than Diamondback. But Diamondback does more with 39ft less track than Orion (I know 39ft isn't that big of a difference, but still). Here is a question regarding the airtime aspect: Would adding more moments of airtime to the layout really make Orion better? The way I personally see it is that adding more moments of airtime to Orion would make it even more similar to Diamondback than it already is. Sure, adding more airtime to Orion would improve the ride experience, absolutely. But in that scenario Orion would just be Diamondback but with different trains and be just a little taller and faster. Furthermore, still on that scenario, what would even be the point of building Orion? Just to have a taller and faster version of Diamondback? At that point, Kings Island would be paying nearly double for Orion what they already have with Diamondback. 

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