The term "bar and plate" means absolutely nothing.
It's as generic as saying because a car is a car....they must all be the same.
The cheap chinese cores are all poor. Does that mean they are bad ? not really. They will work reasonably well, and depending on airflow and cooling requirements, they can represent superb value for money.
Will there be room for improvement ? Damn right there will. But do you need any more ? perhaps not.
If one of their off the shelf designs fits your needs and can arrive at your door cheap enough, then it would be foolish to ignore them. Worst case scenario and they dont perform as expected, then you could just buy a new proper quality core and have it welded onto the header tanks.
http://www.are.com.au/feat/techtalk/techtalk.htm
