Beenthere,
I haven’t verified if it was BP or NBP. I got that information secondhand from another “researcher” who was making a fairly definitive statement about Lifestyles methods. i.e. top of the penis, BPEL. That fellow could be wrong, which would make me wrong as well. I thought about calling Lifestyles for the exact protocol, but didn’t want to make a career of making a spreadsheet, so I ran with the data as presented.
I debated putting it up here, but thought, what the hell, it’s probably at least as accurate as what we usually have access to: anecdotes.
As for whether Lifestyles would choose one or the other method, there are arguments for both. Yours is a good one for NBP. If however, you were making condoms for a variety of men with varying bodyfat percentages, then it would be a good idea to see how much length is covered by a fatpad for the customers who have little or no fatpads.
As for Dr. Wessell’s data, I haven’t seen it, but I’m sure he’s a careful man and a sample of 80 is more than adequate for the population to begin to assume a normal distribution. Provided with a standard deviation, some basic stats could be run. His 6.19” avg is .31” over Lifestyles 5.88”, which may lend some weight to your NBP theory, but I doubt a difference that small would be statistically significant with these small samples.
One thing it does for sure is it puts the average American pecker squarely at about 6”, like most everyone has been saying all along.
At least now if a guy has 6”+ root at least he knows he has a fighting chance in a short-arm competition :)