Hello Gents, its been quite awhile since I've been on the forum, but I thought I'd give an update.
Very cool to see you come back and update this thread after so long! I was sure planning on being a, "One smoke gentleman" when I started my pipe journey a couple years go, since I've always been just that when it came to cigarettes and hookah tobacco, but two years and trying 90'ish blends later and I never did find The One™.
What I have learned however is that I tire of aromatic blends quickly, I love the flavor of Burleys but they give me a scratchy throat and a cough, any amount of Perique gives me a scratchy throat and a cough too as do certain Orientals, but Virginias, Latakia, and Dark Fired Kentucky are all okay and don't cause me any throat irritation.
So, I now have a core rotation of four pure Virginias I really like that all have different flavor profiles. Sutliff 507C Virginia Slices for bright grassy lemon citrus, Mac Baren HH Pure Virginia for a darker bready flavor, Samuel Gawith Full Virginia Flake for it's green/black tea flavor, and G.L. Pease Union Square for it's dark earthy moldering leaf lifter profile that always reminds me of the autumn. I also enjoy a bit of Early Morning Pipe now and then when I want an English blend, and since I'm working on quitting smoking cigarettes right now I dip into a fair bit of Royal Yacht, Irish Flake, Dark Bird's Eye, and Nightcap as needed to scratch the nicotine itch. Weirdly Nightcap seems to be the only blend with Perique in it that doesn't irritate my throat.
In any case, I never did find The One™ but I did find a nice small selection of blends in a few different genres that I really enjoy! If it wasn't for my throat's absolute intolerance to Burley I'm pretty sure Briar Fox could have been The One™ for me, but alas the scratchy Burley throat was too annoying to deal with.