Love it:

"They're great for trying out instruments because they're utterly character-free, but by the same token that makes them the last thing you want to be using for actual playing"

"If David Grisman and Ricky Skaggs, two of the worlds best mandolin players use them, and to the best of my knowledge Martin Carthy also uses D'Addario strings, do you know something that they don't ?"

This is the neat thing - everybody's perception is just slightly different & dependent on many factors. And you can bet that there are designers & developers for every string maufacturer going nuts wishing they could quantify those factors! :-)

Myself, I like D'Addario strings - they've always been the standard I return to after experimenting. Except maybe now for Newtones when I can afford to get an order together.