My opinion, the downside of these cartridges is the extremely tight tolerances and that they get so easily gunked up. Especially with a shave soap that does not rinse fully and with dead skin if you use a lot of pressure while shaving. I'm using very little pressure, a quality shave soap that rinses fully, and giving the cart an alcohol bath afterwards to rinse out debris. Even so, I still cannot see more than 4 or perhaps 5 'clean' shaves per cartridge. Yes, I know there are guys who are pushing these to 10 or 20 uses. In my mind, it's not worth the potential for irritation, plus I have so many other DE, shavette and straight options waiting in the rotation, that replacing a cartridge once in a blue moon is no big deal. Agree, however, that if I were shaving with it every day and on the tighter budget of my earlier days, it might be a different issue.
Thanks for your update.
I may be in the minority but I never had a problem with gunk or irritation with recent carts. However, I didn't get enough good shaves for the cost. After about 6 shaves there was too much drag and potential for a problem. The only thing I really liked about the carts over the old Gillettes was the pivoting head. I've been shaving quite a while so that really doesn't make a lot of difference.
If this model doesn't somehow increase the quantity of good shaves per cart it goes to the collection for occasional use.
I think the article had some salient points. If Gillette was smart they would make an improvement rather than repackaging old technology.