I have dealt with only the express and BBK plates...my opinion:

Express: Kick ass on curbs...pretty fast..crazy lock-on

BBK's: Not enough to say much...but they're fast and have a very well balanced lock-on

Give me two days. My Curbies will arrive tommorrow. I will evaluate those thoroughly, and I will encourage my friend to evaluate his Slipknots.

hey Wesker, since you are around, where did people acquire Octanes? I can't see them in the archive, apparently Slo-Bros came on Septums, and I don't see where they were sold.

Octanes came on the last production run of the Sylons.

They were designed for rail grinding and were more thin than the normal plate.

I've tried original uhf, bbk's, slo bros, and curb busters. The originals are good on rails but are not very durable as far as curbs and angle iron. The bbk's are badass on curbs and also pretty nice on rails, they are very durable tho, they can take a beatin. The slo bros lock onto rails really well and seem to be a pretty solid plate. My favorite by far tho is the curb busters, i've worn my boltars to work the past week grinding our parking blocks all day and these plates are unscathed! These things are amazingly strong, they slide well and they have this nice concave on the outer edge for royals. Another great thing about em is they are not flat, they place your feet at an inward stance when you're on your grinding surface so that you're not sliding on the edge of the plate wearing out a certain part but instead you're sliding on the entire plate! If i had to recommend any of the plates i've tried it would definately be the curb busters :)

Give it time surfaced, they will come, he's good on his word. Anyways, when i get my shoes, i'll have both the UHF original and some BBK plates, i'll try them out and post here what i think of both, but from waht i hear, the originals are going to pretty much suck and the BBKs rock.

I personally never used my originals all that much, purely because i wore straight through them within about a month of purchasing my first pair of soaps.
Since then i used bbks, and i personally love them. I found them to be really good on pretty much any surface, and i find them easy enough to tweak in.
However i still prefer the speedsters...if only they were replaceable...

Scab greys and UHF plates. Never had a problem with either.