I worked for freeborn a number of years and despite Tony EW being ‘difficult’ by all accounts, the frames / custom builds always sold well and the bikes always tested very well when we sent them to UK bike mags.
Couple of my friends had epiphany and moment, no complaints from those guys, I rode different EW bikes many times and was impressed by the suspension performance on rough ground and when pedalling despite many of their claims about ICT being somewhat fantastic
Probably the real issues were poor warranty support from the usa, which led to freeborn having to strip down new frames to give customers parts, and geometry which was not as advertised.