It's nice to finally hear the truth about AC. From a part/maintenance standpoint I agree less part equals less maintenance. As far as the power consumption is concerned their is very little if any difference. I spent some time about 3 years ago witha few engineers from one of the smaller lift truck manufacturers in GA. We installed an oscilloscope on one of their AC (traction only) and then repeated the test on a DC truck. Depending on the manner in which the truck was driven the current draw was the close to the same. If anything it was higher on the AC truck. Over the course of several years and hundreds of sophisticated power consumption tests (not using Curtis unit) on all brands of forklifts the truth on regenerative braking. It saves the brakes on the forklift and it is better than nothing for putting power back into a battery. On average, the Ah return to a battery over the course of an 80% discharge is about 1.8%. What this means is another 8 minutes of run time assuming you would normally discharge a battery in an 8 hours shift.