Mike,
"the bad PR won't bother them a bit"? While Titleist still dominates the market share (and it is all about market share) in golf balls, you cannot deny the gains that others have made, and the fact that the PV1 has been infringing on Callaways patents (which were actually old Spalding patents) does not bode well for Titleist in the eyes of the public.
You are correct in your praise for Titleist as the master ball marketers that they are. In 1999 Titleist was at the top of the heap with the Professional, which was a complete dawg of a golf ball compared to Bridgestone's Tour Premium and the Maxfli Revolution. Bridgestone had the money but it stayed in Japan, while Maxfli was ready to go gang busters, then everything burned down and they never recovered. In my view, these two factors had as much to do with the almighty PV1 dominating the market as any. In December I spoke to Robin English, who ran Maxfi's marketing dept. at the time. To this day he feels that they would have given Titleist all they wanted, but, oh well, we'll never know.