Mike, I don't know that it 'ruffled my feathers'. Maybe it could be interpreted that way. I'll tell one on myself though. I had a razor that I wasn't crazy about. I had bought it in the classifieds on an impulse and it didn't shave to suit me so I honed it. Got it to the shave readiness that I like and later sent it to a fellow as part of a trade for an expensive hone.

I was looking forward to his shaving with it and giving me an assessment of my honing ability but it never got that far. He sent a PM to me saying that he had looked at it under 200x and there were micro chips.

I was mortified. I thought about it awhile and replied to him that if he only used 30x as I do his honing results would improve dramatically. I would venture to say that your scratch patterns would too if you drop down to 30x.