I've really liked Five Star so far. I think it's been an attractive product and from a value standpoint, although I'm more of a collector, I think the resale on singles has been more than adequate taking the price of the product into consideration.
I've always been a fan of NT as I think they always present nice looking cards. As far as value, the rookies always seem to do well. A lot of the veteran patch and autograph cards seem to be solid too.
I've never been a big fan of Exquisite despite having hit some very nice cards in these breaks. I always felt like the product was over priced for what you received. Obviously rookies are always in extremely high demand from the product so the bigger names are always going to bring big dollars. I'm more of a star/veteran collector so the rookie appeal from Exquisite doesn't do a whole lot for me. With Exquisite being a college product this year, I honestly have no interest in it at all. However, I'm always open to what the group suggests so if the majority want Exquisite, I'll still be glued to the computer on break night hoping for a nice pull.
As far as the shady practices UD has pulled with pinning extra patches to jerseys, etc., I think such a small group of collectors will even take that into consideration (or is even aware of it), that it's not really going to affect their sales or resale value of singles. I think the majority of collectors just want an eye catching card and will continue to pay well to collect such.
I've been part of this group for about two years now and have enjoyed every break, no matter the product and no matter if I even had a single hit. Obviously those Peyton Manning autos Chris has pulled for me have made up for the months I didn't get much or anything. I'll continue to be part of the group as long as my extra funds will allow (I have a new baby on the way at the end of the June so my wife has been on me about saving money
). I've always been happy with the selection of products (while some months I'm happier than others) and truly enjoy all the banter and insight amongst all the group members.
In a perfect world (or group break, in this case) everyone would be happy with every product every month. Unfortunately that just can't be the case. I think with the way Chris rotates products everyone should realize and be respectful of the fact that while one month the products you want may not all be there, the next month there's a good chance they will. I think in the end it all evens out.
I'm usually fairly quite on these boards but I did want to throw my opinion out there.