Hi hourman!
You covered a lot of ground. I will just make a few random comments. I am glad that you found a flavor profile that works for you and it got you off the cigs. There is nothing about this site that ~requires~ its members to tow some sort of line about using only tobacco extractions. If the goal is THR and the flavors work for you then GREAT! No one is looking down their nose at those types of choices. I can see how you might have that impression, becasue I use a lot of dry humor when talking about flavors and I like to poke fun at folks like Black Note, but that is just because I sense an irony in "staying in business at any cost". Sometime companies that do that take certain liberties that I find amusing, and I poke at them. It is all over America now, you have beer and liquor manufactures that are now marketing all manner of flavored "seltzers" and products that are so far from their core business, that it strikes me as somewhat humorous. But, for the record, I have a very high regard for Black Note because they did something that no one else would try and that is introduced many vapers to the possibility of pure tobacco extractions. That is a good thing. See my comments in my complete review of their products at
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=12 . In the review I say:
2.) Black Note has brought an increased awareness in the general vaping community of the wonderful experience of tobacco NETs. This is a huge PRO !
So I am very glad they are on the scene and they have done great things for the concept of using vapes made from high quality tobacco.
As far as your comments on Nic Hit with conventional cigars, I can tell you that the pure Cubans I used to have access to will knock you on your ass ! One of the great pleasures, for me at least, is the mouth feel and flavor of a great high quality cigar as it slowly infuses with your saliva and the nicotine passes into and around your taste buds then travels up the blood brain route ! No inhaling required, I assure you !
On the subject of not inhaling and THR, that is a bit of a tight rope to walk. There is real statistical evidence that, yes, the slight or "non-inhale" pipe or cigar smoke is at greatly reduced risk of lung damage, but damage to the mouth, gums, etc is a very real consideration. I agree it is a low risk activity, but like anything it very much depends on the specific product you are talking about, exactly how it is used, length of time of exposure, etc. . To really drop the risk down you have to get rid of the products of the oxidation-reduction reactions (burning with flame in this case). Those products do find themselves into your airways and lungs. I agree at greatly reduced levels, but they are very much still there.
As to answer your question about why a dedicated 50 year cigar smoker would flip to vaping? Humm,... that is a personal decision, and everyone has his own reasons. It should be noted that this is a very small niche group with numbers so low that it not like thousands of cigar smokers are in our ranks. For me it started out with two items: First I had made a personal promise to myself that when I turned 70 I was going to put the cigars down for good. That sounded like a great self-promise, BUT, well,.. easier said than done. Second item is that with a background in chemistry and an adventurous and experimental mindset, I thought making a few extractions for vaping might be a cool thing to try. I would transition to vaping, then quit all together..
But, that led to what became a bit of an out of control hobby. As I accumulated much (newly discovered) information on how to get the best results (yes I agree, it is NOT like puffing on the real thing and it never will be, but that is a discussion for another time..) I realized that the information in the existing forums and youtube and social media about tobacco extraction was mostly wrong. Because of my background and career, I was annoyed with all the junk nonsense out there. I tried to write a few articles and post them in places like e-cig-forum, but the acceptance was low, in fact it was a bit adversarial. That is what led to this phpBB forum that you are on now. So I hope that helps explain why the perspective here might seem a little one sided and a little "look down your nose". It is not intended to be a snobby place that only tolerates one point of view. It is just very tobacco oriented. There are already dozens of BBS forums and social media, in fact one guy has a huge youtube channel that deals exclusively with artificial food chemistry vape recipes. That is great for them, it is just 'not my thing'.
I know that this BBS forum has a very low population and "hit rate' but it was never intended it to be a chatterbox, more it was intended and is a place to record experiments, and record the successes and failures of active hands on experimentation. In the world I come from, we poured over old information from previous experimenters as a preparation step when looking at a new project. The famous quote from Thomas Edison is "My experiments with the light bulb is going great, I now know 10,000 thing that will not work" -One thought that has been kicking around is that this BBS might see very soon a dramatic increase in people looking back down the road to see what is already known. Why do I say that? Well, our beloved FDA is bending the vape world in that direction, tobacco flavors ONLY !
It seems odd to me that, in the face of increasing regulation and complete outlawing of 'flavored vape" around the world that these folks are starting on a journey to bring exactly those products into their well established tobacco-only product line. 
