FWIW, Hitchcocks online catalog (page 92) now claims that they have put in more work on the power commander and seemingly ironed out the bugs, and it comes with a 20% power increase.
Okay, regarding this "20% hp increase", let's have a look at that a little closer.
They say in the ad that "Dyno figures show that we have gained approximately 20% increase in BHP at the rear wheel coupled with a smoother power curve by
using a different air filter and silencer."
This means that it is NOT the Power Commander alone doing this. In fact, the vast majority of the gains are from the free-flowing filter and exhaust, with the Power Commander doing the equivalent of the re-jetting that we would do on a carb equipped Bullet.
There is only one ignition setting and mixture setting that is correct for any particular engine condition and speed. Anything other than that will lose power and efficiency.
A change in electronic controller can only make more power if the existing/previous controller had been tuned poorly enough to be losing that amount of power, and then the new controller can gain back what was lost by the poorly tuned controller.
The facts are that the only way to really increase power beyond what the proper mixture setting and ignition setting allows with the stock system is to increase the amount of air entering the engine, and then adding the proper amount of more fuel to that air to make the best power mixture for the higher amount of air. The free-flow filter and silencer can have some of this effect of improving the breathing. But only to the extent that the breathing capacity of the engine allows for flow.
And this is where we come into the equation. We get more air into the engine. Air is the hardest part of the mixture to get into the engine, because we have to get a LOT of it in there in an extremely short time period of each cycle, while the fuel is easily squirted in in a small amount. It's the air that's tough to get enough of, and without more air, it doesn't do any good to put more fuel in.
So, you have to take these marketing claims of "more hp" with a grain of salt, really. They might give more power, but they can only gain back whatever poor tuning lost with the factory tuned ECU. Or, by adjusting the mixture for the added air flow that the free-flow stuff provided. Just like we would do manually with our carburetor on the Iron Barrel bike.
It's getting more air into the engine, and then getting the A/F ratio set right for that larger amount of air volume that actually makes more power. And this is why we work so hard on the heads, and make such a big issue out of the cfm air flow rates of these ports, etc. It's not just some esoteric issue. It is the very heart of making more power, and that's what we do.