Well, the clubs arrived, and I have one range session under my belt.
First, the clubs are gorgeous. Just a beautiful design. Not at all clunky. They are slightly shorter than my current 8-iron (maybe 1/4 inch or so). Ideally for me, the clubs would be slightly longer than these demos, but for the purposes of trying them out, not that big a deal.
So I went to the range and hit a bucket. I started with the pitching wedge. I hit a bunch of shots with the wedge and then moved on the the 8-iron, and finally the 6-iron. The 8-iron is, well, just an 8-iron. It is the appropriate length for an 8-iron. I hit it well. I had a lot of trouble with the PW. I don't know if it's a mental issue or what. It feels the same as the 8-iron, but about 35% of my shots with it were fat. When I nutted it, it felt great, although the ball flight was very high. I play in a lot of stiff winds in these parts, so I'm not sure I'm a fan of that.
Now, to the 6-iron. This may well be the best 6-iron I have ever hit. Shot after shot was just perfect. Lower trajectory than my current 6-iron, but the shots made a nice cluster out there. I'd guess 85% of the shots I hit with the 6-iron would have found the putting surface. Really nice. And for some reason I didn't have a problem with the idea of a short 6-iron like I did with a long PW.
The 6-iron is one of the Hi-Cor faces, and it makes a really interesting sound. It startled me a bit the first time. If you hit it right on the sweet spot, it makes a fairly loud, medium pitched "TING" sound. If you hear the "TING," you know you're going to get a good outcome.
I'll be trying these a bunch more before they go back. I feel like if I got used to them, it would help my consistency. There's definitely a mental block for me on the PW, and I suppose it would be the same for gap wedge and sand wedge.