The following are a couple excerpts from some correspondence between James and myself, regarding polished vs. brushed titanium. It certainly changed my outlook on it. I was always a polish guy with titanium but he changed my mind with the following:
One way to think about this, is that if someone (say a malicious competitor) were to take close-up photos of a polished titanium head of mine, it would be awful looking. My response would be that the customer asked for this, against my recommendation. I'd prefer to only offer polished on stainless steel, because the results are much better.
Just to fill in a bit more of the picture: the polishing I'm doing gets to about 80 percent fairly quick and easy. Spending more time gets to higher levels, and both stainless and titanium can be over-polished if you're too aggressive, setting you back. I'm basically agreeing to, let's say, 85 percent. I used to keep working and working to get in the 90s (which I can do with stainless without concern that I'll get there) but titanium only gets to maybe 90. That last 5 percent takes a long time, and the result is still only 90, too low for my liking and yet more costly. So I'm done with that and I'm talking the customer into brushed or it's 85.