As the title says, are there consequences of having a yoyo set up to use a slim or a standard bearing versus just a standard?
Also, are the bearing posts shortened to make this possible? Would this make the yoyo easier to strip?
I mean, the bearing post can’t be all that tall, or the yoyo won’t screw together far enough to actually fit a slim bearing. And, the axles may end up being uneven because you have to have a certain length to fit both the full sized and slim bearing-types, but that isn’t as much of an issue. Other then that, the main challenge is balancing responsive and unresponsive performance. Some starter yoyos of the type you mentioned can be a bit on the light side to make them better responsive players, which may reduce spin time, and sometimes the weight is distributed slightly differently, more towards the center, which isn’t necessarily what you want for “pro play”.
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My favorite yoyo manufacturer was YoyoJam, and they specialized in making yoyos that could go between responsive and unresponsive. It’s true that the yoyos had to have a low bearing post for the slim bearings. Another reason for this is that if they made it too tall, the slim bearing would get stuck and be virtually impossible to remove by a YYF bearing tool. As a result, since the bearing would not be held firmly in place, the bearing could get lost if the yoyo came unscrewed for some reason, which was easier to have happen since the axle is shorter to accommodate the slim bearing.
On the other hand, if you want to make more nuanced adjustments, you may remember that older YoyoJam models could be adjusted by a simple twist whenever you wanted (within certain limits, of course). If you want to make the same nuanced adjustments to a yoyo made for slim and standard bearings, you have to adjust something about the response system or put shims onto the bearing seat (then those can get lost too if your yoyo comes undone on you). The twist adjust yoyos didn’t come unscrewed on you in mid-play, but those old YoyoJam throws frequently formed pressure cracks, at the center where the axle screws in, sometimes even when it’s just been sitting on a shelf or in a case, so while the slim/standard bearing setup has its flaws, some of the alternatives have had their drawbacks too.
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Indeed, in these cases I’ve dremeled away some of the bearing post with no ill effect and no vibe after conversion to slim bearing.
Usually the axle is pretty short at that point, and I switch to short axle vs long axle.