MAX stores all of its informations declaratively in lframes. Implications of representing knowledge declaratively jointly facilitates the ability of the agents to learn about and to modify internal operators and debilitates the ability of the agent to respond expeditiously after adding new knowledge.
SOAR in contrast, stores knowledge in compiled procedural format. SOAR cannot change its operators but must generate new ones, while MAX can change its operators. But SOAR operators are compact and fast, even when complex, while MAX's operators grow in complexity.
In addition to the declarative structure of knowledge in MAX agents, knowledge is homogeneous and open. These properties work syergistically with the declarative structure to supply the capability of learning about its entire knowledge and the capability of the agent to bring forth all of its knowledge to bear upon any problem.
Go to a discussion of this property for multiple architectures.