Upgrade 04 X-Star to 08 23 LSV ?

Please do not let this become a boat war, I am looking for some opinions from those that have ridden behind both of these boats and most of all those who have maintained both of these boats. We have fantastic service from the dealer that sold us our X-Star and we are completely comfortable with the dealer and the service department who sell Malibu’s in our area.

When we purchased our 04 X-Star a few years back this site provided a great deal of assistance for myself and for my dad, turns out we made a great decision on the boat and 350hrs later we still love it. We have always owned MC’s but the 2008 Malibu Wakesetter 23 LSV has been catching my dad’s eye as well as mine.

Our X-Star has the 8.1L, and if we were to go with the 23 LSV we would put the 8.1L in it. As far as the usage of our boat, I am an intermediate rider, (a few inverts and spins) and most of our other riders range from intermediate to beginner. In addition to wakeboarding we also like to foil behind the boat and we like to wakesurf, but creating a solid wake surf wake on the X-Star has proven to be a challenge. Normally we ride with anywhere from 3 people in the boat to 12 people in the boat.

I have come up with a short list of things that we like about the Wakesetter that we could not add to our existing X-Star.

Wakesetter Pros:

Reverse tower (Looks great and I love the fact that it is out of your way when you drive, also the swivel board racks seem very functional)

power wedge, additional bow ballast, rider presets (from what I hear the surf wake is much better and the wakeboard wake is comparable to the X-Star, also the new rider presets that control speed, wedge, and ballast would make the process of switching riders much quicker and easier)

Roomier cockpit (most people like to sit in the cockpit rather than the bow, the nose of our X-Star is roomy but it also takes on a lot of water, even when you are careful)

Obviously the stereo in the new Wakesetter is an upgrade to our existing, but if we were looking at upgrading the stereo in our X-Star we could do that without purchasing a new boat. I think that this upgrade would cost around 25k. Roughly 75-80k for the fully loaded 23LSV and roughly 50-55k trade in on our fully loaded X-Star. To trade from our X-Star to a new 08 X-Star would cost 60k, which is out of the question. No need to upgrade to an 08 that has the same tower and hull as our 04.

After being in both boats I don’t necessarily think that the MC is build any better than the BU. Is the wakeboard wake on the LSV comparable to the X-Star, is the stock surf wake that much better on the 23 LSV? Any thoughts for a guy that has never ridden behind a Malibu?