Data East machine definitely had and still have their place in the pinball world.  They seemed to have the better licensed themes though not saying that they really made the most of those themes e.g Simpsons, Jurassic Park, Rocky & Bullwinkle, TMNT, Hook, BTTF, GnR etc etc, pretty big licenses in their day.

I think they were targetting a certain market, namely kids with their machines and typically easier more straight forward game play and rule sets.

I'd have to agree that once a few bugs are ironed out and the standard repairs done e.g. fuse clips, they prove themselves to be very reliable machines.