4noggins, Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought subjective evaluation was OK in pipe smoking. My experience doesn't need to be repeatable by others, it only needs to satisfy me. If it does I think I have a great smoker. Sharing that view with others isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's my opinion and when someone asks for it, I give it freely. In the end they must decide for themselves if thy agree or not. Simply stated a great smoker smokes tobacco just the way I like it smoked, no more, no less. It is by its very nature subjective. We're not talking scientific fact here. We're talking preference. And that is not scientifically quantifiable, nor should it be. One man's meat is another's poison." as the saying goes. When someone says "it's a great smoker" what they are saying is "I really like the way this pipe or brand smokes". What can be taken away from that kind of evaluation is the number of people that think it smokes well or the number who don't. That's a statistic that can be plotted on a standard bell curve and used to identify the median. More people liked this than didn't, etc.. So opinions can be used to quantify general impressions. You're quite right that opinions are not scientific fact but when it becomes obvious that a particular impression prevails that has statistical value and can be helpful especially when I have no frame of reference of my own with that brand. Just thought you undervalued the benefit of opinion.