I thought the same thing, initially. But consider this: I bought two EV-5's with a Roland GR-1 (1992-93) and they're still coming on strong nearly 20 years later. The 'feel" isn't quite perfect for my tastes, but the taper & range are more than manageable with a little practice.
I'm using one of them with a PitchFactor, and I get reliable and repeatable results; 0-100, with a 10K linear as the primary pot. I'm sure that Eventide has built tolerances into that listed 25K value. Cosmetically, it doesn't appear that Roland has changed up the design for newer versions of the EV-5. Component-wise, I don't know.
As for that 50K auxiliary 'trim' pot, but I don't see any real use for it in this application. You can set 'range limits' much more precisely in the pedals' software. The base circuit works equally well without it (bottom view in the diagram).
To be honest, I should probably replace the right-angle plug on one of them (I'm doing 'rope tricks' more often now for a pesky short), but that's to be expected over decades of heavy use. Unconfirmed, but I hear that the M-Audio EX-P pedals are functionally equivalent the EV-5s, and may cost a little less.
