Nicotine Absorption-NOT Leaf Content- of Pipes Vs. Cigars

I start smoking cigars in spring of '13 after dabbling in home grown tobacco for a while. I grew a variety of Virginia bright in poor soil, and could inhale deeply with no discomfort and no noticeable nicotine buzz (even as a never smoker prior to that). I did get cigar sickness a time or two, but learned quickly. I enjoyed cigars a lot, and always aspired to pick up a pipe someday (I am a big Tolkien reader, so naturally).
Last fall I started smoking a cob with Amphora or SWR here or there. But over the winter I had been gifted some MacB no.1 (Doesn't bite me, for whatever it's worth), Stokkebye lux bullseye flake and some proper English. I enjoyed them all immensely, but the problem for me was that I noticed a very different physiological response to smoking pipes than cigars. Even when I would smoke a half or a third of a bowl in a Kaywoodie (small pipe) of MacB No.1 I would stand up, have the head woosh feeling, and could not walk straight. I could routinely smoke a toro in my cigar days, even without a very full stomach, and not feel much of anything at all.
I was concerned because if that meant large amounts of nicotine, than physiological dependence could be around the corner. I took two weeks off, with the intent of starting back up with a cigar. I smoked half a cigar yesterday on an empty stomach, after NO nicotine for two weeks, and didn't feel nary a thing. My heart rate actually went *down* afterwards. All this was very curious to me, and I can't quite wrap my head around it. I want to know if anyone has any similar experiences with cigars as compared to pipes. (By the way, I don't inhale cigars or pipes, and I don't snork)
Here's an interesting study on cotinine (metabolized nicotine) levels in pipe, cigar, and cigarette smokers. This backed up my personal experience of getting a strong response from the pipe, and not much at all from cigars. Of course, it's hard to draw much from it since there is only the abstract and we don't know if inhalation is accounted for in the pipe smokers or not.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6116905

Thanks for the responses.
Kevin, I should specify my objective isn't to figure out, in an absolute sense, any difference between pipes and cigars. All the absolute stuff says that I shouldn't feel a big difference between the two though, which I do, so I wanted to start some non absolute dialogue with folks here who might have noticed similar peculiarities.
I smoked a variety of cigars, some from online retailers and local smoke shops including Macanudo, Upmann, La Gloria Cubana, and plenty of economy combo filler Dominicans. I smoked cigars every day for weeks at a time, and stopped when I got sick of them. So I smoked cigars with coffee, tea, smoked after meals, smoked first thing in the morning with no food or caffeine, etc. Lots of different situations. But when I average it all out, I have never felt the kind of buzz that I feel with a pipe smoking any cigar. And I've smoked cigarettes as well here and there as well.
This whole topic wasn't something I was at all concerned with before I picked up the pipe regularly. I remember after smoking some Stokkebye bullseye flake (A VaPer with Cav in the center, if anyone was wondering)-- and just a small bit mind you, knowing full well that perique could knock me on my arse-- that I felt quite effected from something, the nicotine seemed most likely at the time. So I tried some Stokkebye Proper English, which I figured as an English with a fair bit of Oriental and Latakia would be light on the N. That hit me the same way.
I started looking into things like buccal PH, trying to figure out if I could just drink something slightly acidic to reduce the N absorption orally (since I don't inhale). But that's presuming that it is in fact vitamin N that is causing the different feelings than I get from cigars and even cigarettes. So it's either absorption (which, as Kevin pointed out, is contingent upon a million factors), or some other factor like Carbon Monoxide and Nitric Oxide causing the extreme sleepiness and lethargy, not being able to walk straight, etc.

LatBomber, that's what I always thought, that there wasn't much difference between the two. But then I started noticing that even when I could smoke a toro for 45 minutes or an hour and not get the same effect as I would smoking a half bowl of English in a small pipe (like a twenty minute smoke). Then I ran across that Cotinine study where pipe smokers had just shy of 3 times the metabolized serum nicotine and I started to get curious.

Are we talking about absorption via lungs or oral absorption regarding Virginia and PH? It was my understanding that acidic smoke was absorbed readily with inhalation but was not so in way of oral absorption. This link should take you to page 102 of this text
http://books.google.com/books?id=XQA9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA102&lpg=PA102&dq=pipe+smoking+buccal+ph&source=bl&ots=mdPdijeG-d&sig=cEYggQgPTI3ziIwdO-VrpwBiU40&hl=en&sa=X&ei=k7MgU6SuA4_IkAfRkYDQBw&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=pipe%20smoking%20buccal%20ph&f=false
I've smoked some different roll your own cigarette tobaccos in Canada (mostly Virginia), Camels, American Spirit from the pack, and American Spirit from the pouch all without inhaling, some with filters and some without, and I can say even smoking several in a sitting I didn't notice much N from it. I think I smoked 5 filtered Camel wides in a row on an empty stomach sans inhalation and didn't felt anything that I can recall.
That same text says that cigars and pipes generally yield a more alkaline smoke than cigarettes, which is absorbed better (according to them) than acidic smoke through the oral tissues. I think in that vein, that changing oral PH towards acidic *ought* to lower oral nicotine absorption. It did help to drink Tea or soda when I would smoke my half bowl before I set the pipe down for a few weeks. These E-cigarette folks seemed to think it had something to do with it;
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/nicotine/75818-nicotine-absorption-whats-your-cup.html

No problem with me Cosmic-- I understand cigars aren't for everyone. Or many people at all for that matter. And I can certainly understand why some people cannot *stand* cigar smoke. If I try to light a stogie when I'm not in the right headspace, yes gagging will probably occur, coughing, eyes stinging, etc.
I'm no farmer, so I won't go there. I was just referencing that because cigarettes are typically(?) acidic, whereas pipe and cigar smoke is alkaline. At least is what I've read, I could be very mistaken there (correct me please). No doubt about knowing what is in "nails" to boot-- only brought that up in context with the PH facet of this discussion.
Flaky, not sure where you got that from-- I don't inhale anything, cigarettes, pipes or cigars. If this thread is too obsessive for you, you don't have to continue to read it. Thank you for your first post though, I found it helpful.

12pups-- I think Nicotine, as a stimulant, is supposed to increase heart rate. A google search seems to suggest that, but on the other hand, google searches on smoking related subject are often not reliable. I would wager that nicotine *should* raise heart rate though. I'm not positive, but I was always under that impression.