The earlier model of the 200 were junk in my experience. I had the misfortune of buying two of them. One of the major problems was with the reed valves, and I suspect it had to do with the compressor. They would start to chip off, and once they did they would score the cylinder walls, OOPS, there goes another power head.The eventual cure was to install the high performance reeds used on racing engines.This solved that issue, but when merc discovered I had them installed, they voided my warranty. Interesting in the fact that they were manufactured by mercury in the first place. I averaged between 6 and 700 hrs between power heads only. That being said, the 150's seemed a great running engine. I eventually gave up on the optimax, although I have heard that those earlier issues have been resolved.