Same could be said for anything though, if you look at it like that no testing on this earth is fair and everyone cheats for their benefit. As to the XM8 program everything I have read on practically every website has said the gun sucked.
Company X wants to show their gun is better can company Y's, so they set it up to show this. on the other hand company Y has a test showing their weapon is better than company X, so how do we exactly go about finding something better when everything can be tainted and probably will be? even outside sources can favor one to the other and lean the test that way. This falls into the whole new BCG, Each company says how their is better in their testing, yet in military testing this was proven false. So who do we believe and how do we find the truth?
I can also say that personal experiences with those fancy coatings has been less than stellar leading to my BCG completely seizing up, this never happened on a standard BCG. This video demonstrates what I had happen with those fancy coatings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flju7NvWJ3c
I will also say that I do not see the top names in the industry pushing the fancy coatings, most still use standard phosphate so that is also telling.