I have never understood why both pads are the same. I can only think of one company who have had a different front pad to back pad and thats Kookaburra. I think they had an extra cane in their front pad so it wrapped around the leg more.
Indeed - yet loads of people who bought the kook pads, still wore them with the extra cane on the back leg. oops. I pointed it out to a couple of opposition players and got told where to go!!
I am hearing that there are a few new ideas coming for next season, but they will be hamstrung buy the traditionalists... if you look at the RSB pads, the Aero pads and other two strap, light weight pads - these find it really hard to break into the main stream.
Tomtek might be an interesting person to give a view on this as his helmets are still having to break some traditions...