I always enjoy reading cartridge reviews and views and it's great that you took the time to write your post but one or two things need gentle reminding. In my time I too have opened up almost every single shell I ever fired but will say that shinyness of the lead is not an indicator of it's hardness or quality. In fact very often you'll find super shiny samples inside some very budget loads; the Hull Sovereigns for example surprised me with their dull looking shot but they are as we know a super cartridge if a little thumpy.
Also I'm not sure how Tom so quickly and accurately proved to you the softness of these poor shells that you were using. Even today there is no standard practical way of measuring hardness and it does of course vary from shot size to shot size, very hard COULD mean high contents of antimony which as you yourself have correctly surmised before, leads to a decrease in individual shots specific weight which isn't necessarily desirable unless other factors can be balanced to compensate such as slight increase in size, speed or pattern density via choking up.
I will agree that tear drop shape or even slightly mis shaped shot is very bad news though but again I have to say I can't recall the last time I came across any.
Getting fixated on a single make may be good for our confidence but is ultimately a futile excercise as nobody goes out to make a bad shell, they all perform well enough within their price remit. The trick is to find one that suits your speed/recoil needs and which is available locally and easily. The chances are amost any cartridge you and I care to mention including the sh*te one, someone at some point will have scored big and won big with them.
