Cycling in Waterloo Region

[clasher]

Has anyone used, or have feedback, on the bottom bracket style where it's a threaded bottom bracket, but has bearings which thread into the ends after that, external to the frame, to move the bearing load points farther outboard of the typical narrower internal separation?

Yeah, external bearings are pretty common these days. Most Shimano cranks (mid-level and up) use these style and so do many sram/truvativ. They are similar in appearance to each other but not interchangeable. I've put over 10000km on one set of bearings and they still felt smooth last time I had the crank out. In my experience they are a solid design.