This is a great article and reinforces my experience with high grades and lower grades. I believe it is the quality of the briar and then the construction that makes a great pipe. I don't care how good a pipe looks or how straight the grain if a pipe is not made properly it will not smoke good. I once owned 3 Peter Matzhold pipes with superior grain, all three were drilled improperly and they smoked like crap. I have a rusticated Mastro De Paja that retailed for about 200.00 and it smokes as good as any 1000.00 pipe I have owned. I have owned 4 Dunhills over the years with the oldest being 1977, I have now gotten rid of them all. They just didn't measure up to better pipes( less expensive also) in my collection so why keep them.
I buy pipes to smoke and in my experience great smokers can be had at many different price levels. I will say that my experience with machine made lower end pipes has not been great. Now the pipes were a Jensen, Nording and Peterson. These pipes didn't smoke cool and dry, they got hot very quickly and gurgled. Now seeing as that I had other pipes to compare them to, I recognized their faults quickly. If I didn't have a baseline of some great smokers, I would have never known the difference. I think everyone should try a higher grade pipe at least once so they can see if they notice the difference in smoking qualities. With the estate market, that is very easy to do. There are tons of pipes that sell for around a 100.00 that are highline great smokers. I just piked up a Winslow E grade Ekstra that reatiled for 400.00 for 84 bucks, it is a great smoker.