does the E-chip make a difference, who knows?
The fact is there are too many variables involved to ever really say any one piece of equipment makes any difference at all.
You could put the same setups down, with the only difference being that one flasher has the E-chip and you could troll around for days. Now if that E-chip took all the fish, it still wouldn't be a controlled enough experiment to categorically state that the E-chip made the difference.
At the end of the day you'll catch more fish on what ever piece of equipment spends the most time underwater. That being said I do catch fish on E-chip flashers, but I don't worry about if I put a flasher down that doesn't have one.