Regarding company reccommendations: I take a bit of a jaundiced view as far as string guages go. Any guage of strings that "raises" the action noticeably may be too heavy. Some of the new martins have pretty flexible necks and you DON'T want to start messin' with the adjustable rod. Most repairpeople will tell you that once you start with that, you'll never stop.

I'm really big on "Split-sets". Medium bass and light treble. Means you gotta buy two sets, but I've found it to be worthwhile. I play a lot of bass runs and find the "split" set works great without adding too much tension to the neck.....but of course as you all know, I'm totally obsessive about stuff like that Ha Ha!

Rick