How exposed to the elements is the EQ? Are you getting it rained on etc? If so I don't think anybody else's product is really going to be any better than the WS unit. If the boat is kept dry and doesn't see rain (and has some means of shedding water if it does accidentally get rained on) then you could consider (in addition to the exile zld) the audiocontrol three.1, arc audio KEQ5, or the venerable clarion eqs-746 (new model eqs755). None of those other options have dual zone eq, but I've found that separately eq'ing tower and cabin isn't as necessary with modern speakers (i.e. rev10s vs pro80s).
The clarion unit works well and (IMHO) sounds as good as the WS unit (I haven't used the others, but reviews are good). I recently bought the new clarion to try to isolate a nagging alternator whine issue (figured it out, and it wasn't my WS420), and I was really surprised with how good it actually sounds for $60 bucks. The big complaint is that the knobs are really small, and there's not a "big" volume knob. But $60!
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