Done to death and ends in a shit fight.
Having said that
Pre 82 is no harder than the word evo. A new punter has to learn how it all works, just like I did. It amazes me how we talk as though we have to dumb down things as if the newby is a dumb arse.
The only hard bit is in the fact the of differing technologies in this era. You can call the class toasted sandwiches if you wanted to. Its just a name. The yanks have names and not year cut off dates.
Pre 82 was only invented due to some that believe that the rules should reflect a form of pigeon holing bikes into their era and cross pollinating ,if you will, should not be allowed. The power(s) that be disagree and so do some punters. So those people took matters into their own hands in the form of pre 82, which turned into a major shit fight, mainly due to many bikes not complying to the pre 82 class rules. Simply, they had parts that were off linkage bikes.
When using pre 78 parts on a pre 75 bike is considered a no no, as to any other era that has a name associated with a year cut off (pre 65 etc). Yet evo seems to be open slather. Thats not to say there aren't punters with later parts on their bikes such as 88 cr250 forks in an 84 cr250 for e.g.
My evo bike was built around a motor. I bought everything else. I truly believed then and still do now that out of era parts should not be okay on your bike. I built my bike in 2010, way before all this crap started.
I will also say that I had nothing to do with concept of pre82, even though I both understand why it was done ( wish it hadn't due to the rift it has caused) and as you have read (if you have gotten this far) I believe in the reason behind the pre 82 shit storm.
At the end of the day, vmx is far from black and white. What about 2017 shocks? Fat bars? Billet parts? Then add humans into the mix and here we are! a shit fight thats strained friendships and made enemies. Thats the worst part. I love my vmx friends and to have them strained over this subject has taken a toll, even though people are so over talking about it things are getting better. The sooner pre 82 is dropped for the benefit of vmx the better. Not because its wrong...