The pod drive is driven 99% by the ease of low skill labor to stick them in the hole.
I can't agree with that. In my opinion there are two drivers to the pod drives. First, is handling. All the docking issues we read constantly about here and elsewhere are tremendously reduced with pods. The joystick controls are remarkable. Now, joysticks are coming into play on non-pods as well that have bow and stern thrusters. But the slow speed handling of pod driven boats is incredible. Second, it's economy. If you've got a 45' Sea Ray or 60' Marquis or even an 80' Delta and you get out and run it fast and often, the fuel savings are sizable. There have been many direct comparisons made. I'll choose one to refer to.
52' Sabre Express. Choices are 2 x 865 hp CAT Shaft drive vs. 2 x 700 hp IPS drives.
Speeds...at WOT, Shaft 30.6 knots, Pod 32.7 knots. At 1800 rpm. Shaft 21.9 knots, Pod 21.7 knots. NMPG at WOT, Shaft 0.40, Pod 0.52. NMPG at 1800 rpm, Shaft 0.51 nmpg, Pod 0.66 nmpg.
Boattest tested a 45' Formula with Pods vs. V-Drives. This was 2 x 575 hp V-drives vs. 2 x 435 hp pods. IPS was 5% faster with 24% less hp. At cruise, the IPS burned 33% less fuel.
In a specific range of boats Pods have some significant advantages. They also do have some disadvantages and outside that targeted range of boats they haven't yet proved practical.
Here's a good example of the limitations of pods. Sea Ray offers Pods on all the Sundancers. However, on their new 59' L to get the desired performance the configuration in which it is sold is triple 600 hp Pods. On the 65' L however they sell that model with twin 1135 hp CAT's. The performance and fuel numbers of those two boats is nearly identical. The issue is that Zeus pods have hp limitations (as do IPS but they go higher), so you start talking triple and quad pods and then they just no longer make sense.