Well, I wasn't thinking of the professional reviewers, just the personal statements from regular folks here on the forums.
I like to help newcomers, but lately having a hard time findings what to suggest because of the scathing comments of some members.
So, it's mostly having to do good research, and buy small to start?
I think I'd like to chime in just a little bit. - You and I joined ECF about the same time and I've read many of your posts. I don't know about you, but I lurked the forum for 3 or 4 months before deciding to join. While reading for those few months, I figured out some people really knew what they were talking about and some people didn't. So, by the time I actually joined, I already had a few people I was really willing to listen to and a few I was sure I'd never be able trust much. A lot of the time, though, it wasn't such a simple thing because of differing opinions and differing preferences. i.e.: Just because something works really well for me doesn't end up making it true that it will work so well for the next person.
A few topics along the way really got my interest. Such as: Cartos. There were so many differing opinions and differing preferences with the cartos that were around a year and a half ago that I just couldn't sort it out. So... I bought nearly every carto that was available at the time and tried them all for myself. When I was done with that experiment, I discovered two things. 1) It was expensive to go about things that way. I don't recommend buying a box of everything to figure out what works. 2) My opinion was vastly different about a few of those items than the opinions of several people I was (and still am) certain knew what they were talking about. It just turned out that my preferences were different than their preferences.
So, that leaves a real difficulty when trying to recommend something. Sometimes it's really hard to describe why I like something == *AND* My reasons for liking something might actually end up being the exact reasons someone else hates it.
At the risk of making this too long and boring: Let's take the eGo-t for another example. Mine worked. Every single eGo-t atty I had worked except a couple of LRs I got from TW. My eGo-t's created plumes of vapor and delivered my nicotine to me very well. I never experienced leaking, flooding, or premature atty deaths. -- Well, by the end of the eGo-t craze, I felt like I was the only person who never had trouble with it. I even defended that device a few times because I just couldn't understand why mine always worked and so many other people had such troubles. I couldn't see how others could experience such a variety of problems (most of them serious problems, too) while mine never once failed to do what I expected.
That led me to another understanding: There are always variables that are impossible to account for whether they be in manufacturing, in the way a user operates the device, in different juices... etc etc or what-have-you.
So, when you see someone saying something works great and then see someone else saying it's a pile of junk, they might both be right. the best we can do in recommending things to others is to stick to what we know and do our best to describe why it works for us. If it doesn't end up working for whomever the recommendation was given to, well... that's unfortunate but it isn't like we deliberately tried to mislead them.
I ordered my first ecig to use when it would be more convenient then smoking and the day it arrived decided to see "if" I could switch from smoking to only vaping. I've gotten much more satisfaction from vaping then I ever imagined was possible and couldn't be happier with the entire experience. Well I guess I could have lived without modding those dang cartridges with tea bags or blue foam 
