[ADTech]

I've tested most of the legacy and current preamps as part of my duties, so I do have a bit of a unique perspective on what's out there now and in the past.

that said, did they keep the old design for the Channel Master 7778, or did they redesign that too -- and if so, would not the 7778 also suffer the same redesign issues the 7777 did ?

The CM7778 was similarly re-designed. The only thing the "old" and the "new" versions have in common is their name and their metal case. They are COMPLETELY different products now as compared to the "old" versions. I have not tested the "new" 7778, I own and am using a 7777 on my home system as I needed the 30 dB gain for a very extensive distribution system.

If there are production flaws in the design of the Channel Master series,

There is no such flaw in the design, but in the marketing of the products if there is any "flaw" present, IMHO. The amps are completely competent for what they now are but they are not what their predecessors were. "FUD" has been and still is now in control.

are there pre-amps out there of comparative performance and cost by the likes of Winegard and/or other manufacturers ?

The circuitry of the <$25 RCA is about an 80% clone of the "old" 7778. Inexpensively made and it sometimes shows although competent enough for the price point. Only dual-input amp in common availability including in-store at Menards (upper Midwest generally), otherwise ship-to-store at any Walmart.

The offering from Winegard (LNA200S) was made as idiot-poof as possible and that shows in lab testing. Their noise figure claims are for the underlying semiconductor devices but fail to include the deleterious effects of all the front end filtering and the diplexer. Their overload claims appear to have been take from the absolute maximum values (more=device destruction) rather than from actual performance. The internal dual amplification path keeps UHF and VHF signals from mixing in the amp but I've had two samples in which the VHF path died for no apparent reason. It does have the advantage of being the only pre-amp available in a national retail store chain (Home Depot). If you absolutely need a preamp TODAY, get this one.

From my employer's offering, our PA18 offers a very low noise figure (usually well under 2 dB) but overloads too easily making it useful for weak-to moderate signal areas only, something it excels at. My quick and dirty rule for our customer service folks is that if the TVFool plot shows "green", the PA18 probably isn't going to be usable at that location. Our newer Juice and its predecessor CPA19 are the most overload-resistant pre-amps to come across my workbench so far with decent noise figures. However, the Juice is currently out of stock (should be available again by Thanksgiving) and the CPA19 has been discontinued for awhile.