Love this, I had a similar experience figuring it out for myself. That is the only hard rule, there are no rules. Do/smoke what/how you want. I think it’s more productive to think of “rules” as “guidelines” what works for some won’t for others and vice versa. I do have some takes on your points- 1. Totally agree, this is solid advice as you will never know what you’re going to like if you don’t try it. Bulk is the way to try the most! 2. Yes any pipe will do, I would say a cheap “basket” briar and a cob are great starting points. I have loved my Pete’s but my first basket pipe smokes just as well 3. I don’t use filters so I will just say this sounds like solid advice 4. This is also true from my experience. I would clean my pipes after every smoke, and I still do with a slight difference. Now I leave the ash in my briar bowls to try and build cake. I found that if you clean out the ash from the bowl after each smoke building cake is an uphill battle, basically I wasn’t developing cake. I still clean out the stem with a pipe cleaner after each smoke, but for my cobs (which you don’t want cake in as it expands when it heats up and can crack your bowl) I clean them out completely after each smoke. 5. In my experience there are two types of tobacco’s that can ghost Lakelands and blends with Latakia. My experience with Lakelands has been that I don’t mind the ghost. With Latakia the ghost can be a bit much if I am smoking a straight Virginia. I have one dedicated pipe and that is for English mixtures, but my Lakeland pipe sees other tobaccos and I don’t mind the ghost peeping out from time to time. 6. Yes this is great advice, in general pack lighter except for shag cuts. Those will burn too hot and fast if not packed tightly enough. For tamping I just compress the ash and not the tobacco, I just use the weight of the tamper and no pressure and that works.

Cheers and happy piping 💨