I started making soft spinners this year. Seems like everyone else does it, too anymore, and it's getting hard to find components (especially in "trick" colors). I haven't done any better on them than I ever did on wire spinners (I have had crap fishing on all gear types this season, so probably not a great sample so far), but I have noticed I lose fewer of them, they are cheaper than quality wire spinners, and they don't twist up your line nearly as much, so there's a lot to like, IMO. I don't like casting them as much as wire spinners. Harder to be accurate with 3-4 feet of relatively unweighted stuff behind the in-line weight. Also, there is sometimes slack in the system when your cast lands, so it can take a couple cranks to get the blade spinning. In tight spots, that can cost you fish.

Also hoping to source some matte silver Colorado blades; as was mentioned, the nickel finishes on most components don't have near the flash quality of matte silver. It's pricey and hard to find, like most great stuff.

Based on what I saw early this season, as with wire spinners, dark colors work much better in low, clear water than the crazy bright stuff. I didn't have any dark colors, but on two occasions I watched people fishing darker colors drop into holes I had been working all morning with little success and proceed to pull out a limit of chromers in 15 minutes, so sometimes, color matters. Before the crowds hit the rivers, I hooked a couple nice fish on a blue over chartreuse combo, but once the fish had seen a few hundred pink, blue, and green ones, they pretty much started running from them.

Back on topic (sorry), I have heard a few tales of "slow" orders from R&B, but it doesn't surprise or alarm me. The supply side in the small lure components business is inconsistent, to say the least, so they probably deal with a lot of backorder issues, product discontinuation, etc.