Looking for good answers than just some weave that they stick in you. I never remembered it a decade ago. All there was to get back then was muscle augmentation. Suddenly this new gizmo pops up! How long has it been around for? Where did it first appear?

it first appeared in Shadowtech. the description was pretty much the same--Gortex-varient strands interwoven with your muscle fiber.

In Shadowtech, there was just muscle augmentation. There, however, it had the combined effects (and combined bioindex and ¥ costs) of the (now splitted) muscle toner (giving you more quickness) and muscle augmentation (giving you more strength).
In the first German translation they made the mistake to give you +1 reaction and +1 quickness for every step of muscle augmentation. Since then, I never had a dwarf that fast .

er, crap. you're right.

So all they did was split an old item in half? What a way to make new wares!

Well, it makes some sense to combine the effects, but there's more to muscle than just strength..

And one can improve ones strength without ever working on their speed...

As far as I see it, muscle toner weaves more elastic muscle fibers into you, allowing your muscles to contract faster and giving you a boost in speed and agility.. Muscle augmentation just increases your muscle fiber, giving you more strength..