There are plenty of people on here will agree with me that kicker is garbage...
I'm one of them. Not that the L7 is terrible. But I don't like the design or the mentality that goes along with their marketing/customers.
I prefer separate chambers because that piece of wood helps with the structure of the box. It also allows you to keep playing with one sub if the other is damaged. Another advantage would be to run stereo subs. However, not too many people want that or are even able to implement that correctly.