Thanks for the excellent article. I appreciate Bill's common sense approach to whole aging, cellaring thing, and he's spot on.
In my book, aging doesn't improve blends. Blends undergo changes over time. Whether that change constitutes an improvement is up to the individual smoker to decide. I've just opened up a 17 year old tin of a very well regarded Virginia, and it's like smoking a flame thrower. As a rule, Virginias don't bite me. I'm aerating it over a month to see if it mellows out and if it doesn't, into the trash it goes.
Blends that were released before their tobacco was ready may seem to "improve" quite a bit over a few months to a few years. Some tobaccos don't show much change at all. And after a while, like wines, blends peak and decline.
It's been my experience that it's a rare blend that's better at 30 years. And while I've smoked quite a few very aged blends, 90% of them were past it, well past it. The other 10% were good and of those, 10% were fantastic.
That's the risk and reward of cellaring and aging. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes it's a draw.