Min, I have a couple of higher end pipes (yes! They are gorgeous and smoke amazingly well - they should!), and examples of everything else on the descending scale. I love 'em all.
At the moment I am in love with an old Banbury that I bought not so long ago in a flea market for £1. Yep, £1. I wasn't expecting much. However, this is, quite possibly, my finest smoking pipe for flakes. I can count my 'perfect' smokes on the fingers of one hand, but, yesterday, this increased by one. I spent an hour in the greenhouse with that ugly little pipe and some HH Latakia Flake. I ascended to heaven - briefly.
It is quite astonishing to me how some of theses old, and/or cheap, pipes can deliver such beautiful smokes. I have a WW2 era beach wood squat bulldog, with plastic stem that is a superb smoker - that one cost 1 euro.
I tend to gravitate to these pipes more and more - to the point I rarely look at higher end pipes now. I'm looking for those good old, cheap, lumps of smoking perfection few others seem to be interested.
But, as Sablebrush says, technique is the key - I'm still trying to work that out ;-)