Hitler and Stalin had a baby together. That baby is the smith machine.
There is alot wrong with the smith machine from a strength building perspective. The smith machine is alot like leg presses in that the usefulness of the strength developed on that piece of equipment does not translate well to other pieces of equipment.
If all you care about is hypertrophy then making the smith machine a mainstay in your program is ok I suppose, alot of very well built people use them for this purpose.
CT put out a new article discussing the different factors that influence hypertrophy. There comes a certain point where if you are going to maximize you muscle gain doing constant tension you will do well using a smith machine, hammer strength or the like, because, using this method the only way you can use a decent load while keeping a high TUT is with a machine.
Thank you for everyone’s response to my post. Based on everyone’s input, I will still use the Smith Machine but not to increase bench press. Thanks.