The Cake is a Lie, as is the First Bowl

I'm like that with Virginias. It takes a few goes until I figure out how it wants to be smoked and get the best out of it.
English blends are much less finicky for me. Nightcap, for example, I loved from the first bowl and it's never really changed on me.

I've had some blends that were love at first light and others that took some time to grow on me. I would not say that your experiences are unusual.

There are all kinds of variables with pipes and blends, but I think the smoker's taste develops and evolves, and that's part of the adventure. Buy in small quantities. Try around a lot. Different genres. If it doesn't taste good after five or six bowls, put it aside and come back in several months. Sometimes it's a whole new day with a blend. I think all of us find our tastes and likes change from time to time, season to season. Like food. This is good.

I would say you can't really know a tobacco until you have smoked at least an once, maybe two.

Okiebrad: Are each of these blends first tried form a freshly opened tin? I find that many blends need a little time in in the air after you open a tin for them to be in their prime. I am not talking about drying time as they are still in the tin but the act of opening a tin must start something like airing red wine. Combine that with finding the right pipe and packing for a blend and the flavour can change a lot from one bowl to the next. I have blends that sing in one pipe and are bland in others and it is not always the pipe I would expect to match a blend that works out the best. Gaslight is a great example. I get way more out of it in a pipe with a narrow chamber which surprised me.

A lot of those "poetic" first tastes, are done by veteran smokers. It took me about five years to be able to accurately discern individual tobaccos in any given blend, and now twenty-five years in, I am still learning new things. Patience is key, and you will get there.

Video game reference. "Portal"

Most people say to smoke at least one tin to get to know a blend, but I'm pretty sure that sample variation can get in the way fairly often, especially with bulk.
Over the last two years I had to try five different samples of classic "ketchupy" red Virginia before I got one with any real tang to it. Three samples and one tin of mostly starchy flavoured VA, and then BAM! The last sample was like a splashing sweetened vinegar in your face. It was McClelland 2015, but I had to buy it twice before I got some with tang.

Now I'm wondering if my old samples are going to gain that attribute or if the new sample is going to lose its tang with age?

Not sure I get the part about the cake being a lie, but my experience with tobaccos is that a great many of them are just not really that different or distinctive enough from other blends to truly bring something new to the market, or are just a bit too bland. Copies of copies of copies. My theory is that it is taking time for you to decide whether you like it or not because with each bowl, you hone in on subtler and more subtler differences looking for some characteristic to grab a hold of, until you either find something about it that you like or not. Or it just might leave you, like a lot of blends leave me, as a blend I can smoke but do not particularly enjoy.
To my mind, when a tobacco is tinned or whatever for market, it should pretty much be in a condition where it is ready to be smoked as intended by the maker, the assumption should not be that it needs drying out (loss of weight) or some sort of aging, otherwise, why not dry it out or age it further at the factory? If I don't know whether I'm going to like it or not on the first bowl, I probably never will. If I like the first bowl, I will probably always like it and grow to love it. If I don't like the first bowl, I have never later found it to be a blend I really enjoyed. My most preferred blends I have loved at first puff. Aging tends to make good blends better and bad blends worse. At least for me.
Is your packing or pipe a factor? Possibly, and if you try a couple different pipe types and packing methods, this should help.
I say keep searching for the right blends. When you find a good blend for you, you will immediately know it. There will be no doubt that you love the tobacco. ITMT, you will learn other things and can choose from the failures what to add to them to make them into something you enjoy on first light.

For me, I only know that I don't like a blend at first-bowl. With others - the ones that I try and like - I sometimes learn more about the blend as I smoke more of it. I am at the (still-neophyte) stage where a particular blend will act differently in different pipes. So, I suppose, if I smoke a new blend in a pipe that may not like it as much as another pipe would, I experience the same thing that okiebrad is describing.
As for cake, none with aromatics. But I don't smoke aromatics anymore (except for stuff like University Flake), so cake is something that I have to control.

Sometimes it takes me much longer than you mentioned. I tried Old Joe Krantz for the first time at the beginning of this year and I absolutely hated it, but I didn't give up on it. I must have given it a shot at least once a week to see if I could understand it but much to my chagrin, I just didn't like it! I don't know what happened but as of late, that's all I want to smoke and I plan on buying a couple pounds of it. It's really strange how that works but I know now to never talk shit about a blend because ya never know, it could become your favorite. In fact, I used to hate Cornell & Diehl, I didn't like one single blend of theirs but now? That's all I'm craving... so weird how that works. Oh and Epiphany? I thought it was some half assed American/English style blend that was all kinds of wrong... Now? Wow, I love the stuff, it just sings!

An understanding of pipe smoking, like an appreciation for fine wine is not something that happens overnight. First you must develop a knowledge of the type of blend and then for the subtleties of the blenders variations. Generally it's valid to say "at this point I do or don't like this kind of tobacco". That may change over time, for most of us it does. First find something that pleases you and then explore the differences between blends. As your tastes expand so will your understanding. I've been smoking a pipe for over fifty years and there are still things I find new even now.

As with meeting new people, over time, characteristics which may have first been off putting may eventually become endearing. Time can have a way of altering first impressions.

characteristics which may have first been off putting may eventually become endearing

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Pretty sure this is how my wife feels about me.

otherwise, why not dry it out or age it further at the factory?

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Because that costs the blender money!

For me, I only know that I don't like a blend at first-bowl. With others - the ones that I try and like - I sometimes learn more about the blend as I smoke more of it.

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That's how it's worked out for me too. It can take me a tin or more to really understand what's going on in a blend.