ok i'm back ( damn phone!!!) lol actually i should say that the biggest reason for the angled gears is to make them quiet. ever notice how reverse whines so loud? reverse gears are usually staight cut gears and they're pretty noisy. the longer gear srurface in the angle gears makes em a lil stronger, but some peole say that straights are stronger. lol but i remember a long time ago, that was a question in the ase test and the answer they wanted was noise.