trouble is, the plow is what stops the grit getting under the pad &
embedded - the /only/ reason to buy these pads. agreed, they can be mushy
and squeal like mad, but the plow /does/ work in foul weather.

Grit getting embedded is no problem for me at all. I actually smear mud on
my rims to clean off the brake pads after a long dry spell... my brakes work
wonderfully after these treatments. Granted, I DO have 2 or 3 long, deep
gouge marks the diameter of sand grains clean through the pad fore and aft
with *no permanent embedding*, but the braking is predictable, strong,
linear, and nearly silent. Having said that, I would rather have permanent
good performance than longer pad life.

The pad life is actually rather surprising, especially after maybe 10 muddy
MTB rides and 300 dry miles with a previous set of silent black Kool-stops
in Avid cartridge holders. I'll take a picture of them with their gouges
when I get the chance.

are you using shimano or campy calipers? if they're the fixed toe
shimano's, you're going to have mushy brakes anyway. campy are great
because pad mountings are orbital and you can adjust to parallel to get
very positive brakes /and/ minimal grit. haven't gotten around to
installing them yet, but i recently bought a set of orbiting pad holders
for shimano. i'm interested to see if they address this issue.

I wrote "MTB" in the subject... unless you were thinking that I might
actually have some old Campy MTB stuff: ha! On my road bike with original
old champagne-finish 105 brakes and pads, I get very good squeal-free and
wet-performance braking with fixed toe mountings. When I bought them, I
thought I would have to replace the pads, but their performance surprised me
and I kept them on.

--
Phil, Squid-in-Training