> mixture of molds and being broken in
Unused new-old-stock MX switches from the mid 1980s have noticeably smoother feel and don’t make the scratchy sound you get with new MX switches from, say, 2010.
Artificially wearing in keyswitches with 100s of thousands of robot keypresses seems really silly to me, though I guess it’s easier than disassembling every switch and sanding down the friction points with fine-grid sandpaper or applying fancy aerospace lubricant or whatever the kids are doing these days. YMMV.
Retooled switches from 2010, yes, but Hyperglides are new moulds as of 2020. Cherry made a fairly big deal out of it at the time. I've heard of people using diamond polishing paste to do something similar.
I did try ultrasonic cleaning some of my Alps switches, but it’s hard to replicate the factory lube. The lubes we use for MX switches aren’t ideal.
I would fully expect a new old stock AEK to be amazing. All of my AEKs are indeed electrically reliable, but they are scratchy.
0: https://rndkbd.com/collections/broken-in-switches/products/u...