Interesting comment, I owned the 1st 2001 Play Boy Cig built, I did 7-8 poker runs with Stu and could out accelerate TS Bravo Top Gun’s even if they had 575’s. A lot of this had to do with the fact that the 35 hull did run a lot flatter and accelerated quicker allowing you to get back on the throttles much quicker when running in rougher water. I also had Tres set up the boat and put some different props on that helped.
Cig built a Play Boy to have 750’s Cobra/Bravos XR installed, when they went to put the the motors in there was not enough clearance for the engines, later the boat was fitted with 500 EFI’s.
Tres did put some big power in a 35 Top Gun straight hull with #5’s.
Biggest water I had my boat out in was 8 footers, boat did fine but if you run big water all the time get a gun or tiger.
The 35's are not holding their value as well as the 38's, new a 35 was about $30K cheaper than a 38 in the yearly 2000's.
My $.02