".....throat hit is kinda an unpleasant sting, not a lot of vapor..."
I didn't see anyone address this, although I may have missed it, I personally don't like the throat hit, and PV makes my stomach very upset. Also PV doesn't make that much vapor. I am a newbie to this, but am retired and spend hours a day just doing research on e-cigs, I find them amazing, I've chosen to go with mostly or all VG, some flavor bases I get are PV, so that's all I put in my mix. I found a lot of good and worthless videos on utube, but have learned a lot. It's not really rocket science to make your own e-juice. I do not make anything off of these companies, but find that they have what I want. I get my USP grade VG from Walmart in the first aid section, very cheap, I like the flavors from perfumersapprentice.com, and go to the DIY section of the site myfreedomsmokes.com, to get your nicotine base as well as bottles and tools. You'll have to experiment with making small batches till you get the ones you like. An on-line calculator to help you is at phinguyen.squarespace.com/ejuice Use at least a 24mg/ml strength juice and you'll be satisfied. It's nothing like suffering cold turkey or the non-sense of gum or the danger of a patch.