Top 5 Favorite Billy Cobham solo albums

That pretty much eliminates my favorites. Could we include Jazz is Dead?

No big deal for me. I don't own a single one of those. I think the 
only one I ever heard even, is Flight Time

Live recordings. I had a very hard time being on the live albums show for the channel as I hold very few in high regard.
They tend to be rehashes of songs I already have, with lesser production. And the label suits usually
screw up anything really good, shortening shows, picking the overplayed songs, sanitizing the performance etc.
To the extent I listen to live stuff, it's usually boots, where I can avoid those pitfalls. 

Yeah, I got that one based on it being ranked on one of your lists. I like it.

I prefer to not even hear Stratus at this point though. Easily in my top 3 or 4 most overheard fusion tunes

Agreed. Aside from the energy factor, (I got this mostly from Henderson): The album material can greatly benefit from touring it, because they get to perfect & evolve it through repetition, trial & error, reaction. So unless they haven't toured the material first, the album songs may not be as fully baked as they could be. So the live material may be the best incarnation. I know a lot of artists have wished they could re-record the studio album after extensive touring.

I really think it depends....for example, most of my fave Holdsworth albums are the live ones. There's no comparison. I know he would have had issues with that statement, being the irrational perfectionist he was, and I do love the studio stuff--but the live stuff is just burning, in comparison.

You know it used to be the case that Jazz was always recording live, as a group, in studio. Artists would pick the best cuts, if they were lucky, or the RVG's of the world would choose what went on the album. Some fusion is still made this way. Some of it is assembled in the studio, like most rock and pretty much all Pop music these days.

But I digress and have taken this thread on an unintended tangent.