Concerning the issue of well known FCC parents yielding the best offspring, that is not always true for a number of reasons. Firstly there is the issue of line breeding and award perception/fashion versus actual species characteristics (if you are buying a species for the beauty of the species, or award characteristics, they are not always the same thing. There are a lot of spicerianum and charleswothii arround which do not resemble the actual species anymore). Secondly there are a large pool of great plants out there which have not been put up for award, and would most certainly get awards if they were submitted, many of these have got clonal names like 'Chen', 'Fred's Best' and '#106'. Then there are many plants which have a lower award clasification, but breed better than those with higher awards. Having said all this, yes, progeny from superior parents will on average be better than progeny from inferior parents. But that is not always guaranteed, as genetic expression is more complex than good parent x good parent = good offspring.