Martin,

One thing to be aware of when talking pick gauges is that different picks are made from different materials. Manufacturers only grade picks by thickness, not stiffness. A "medium" pick made by one company may be the equivalent of a "medium-heavy" in another. I broke a bunch of strings a few years ago because the music store was out of the D'addario picks I was using and I bought Dunlop Tortex of the same gauge. I assumed they were pretty much identical since they even use the same colors to identify the gauges. WRONG! They are about 20% stiffer (by my unscientific calculation). I was already using as heavy a pick as my playing style would allow and strings started popping left and right. It took me a month to figure that one out. Now I use the Tortexes (of a lighter gauge) because they have the stiffness without feeling like you're playing with a man-hole cover.