Why would you bother coming to a discussion about a bike that is, like most bmx bikes, equipped with a u-brake to tell them that u-brakes suck? that's fine if that's been your experience, but what did you hope to add to the discussion with that? glad you got that rant off your chest, but it does nothing for this discussion. OP can't change the brakes on his bike at this point.
I've never had to pour Coke on my rims to make them work. in the early days, I had side-pull brakes like Diacompe Bulldogs and those sucked, so I regularly applied Simple Green to the rims to get them to work for flatland riding.
it takes less five minutes to tune a u-brake perfectly (another extra minute if there's a gyro involved) and you need to use the appropriate brake pads for your rim. they were always as effective as any mtb disc brake for me. I could do tricks on my rear wheel that required a sudden powerful stop on one wheel with a lot of momentum behind it and because I set them up with a basic level of proficiency, they never failed me. any other result is from inferior generic u-brakes or a lack of skill on the part of the mechanic.
other bikes moved on to different types of brakes because they needed tire clearance and had more room. you also don't need to worry about annihilating a disc brake rotor while doing a feeble grind on a brick ledge on a mountain bike because people typically don't do anything like that on any other sort of bike. u-brakes are narrow and out of the way, so there's no other brake that would really work for that application anyhow. with people like George French designing parts, I'm sure that if disc brakes were a good application for BMX, they'd be commonplace. instead, he's working on even simpler brakes and reliable freecoaster hubs for Odyssey.
someone needs to let
Rob Ridge know that his inferior u-brakes are holding him back.