So true, especially with having just moved to Japan I've been putting off sharpening my blades because there's only 1 person sharpening for pretty much the whole Kansai area and nobody's sharpened anywhere else so can't comment whether it's actually good or not... Not to mention Japanese skaters seem to favour P99 over GS. Back when I lived in Melbourne though, there was a coach who did really great sharpens, and he even did sharpens for a girl with paramounts too! Another coach recommended my friend who's now moved to Singapore to switch to Ultima blades so that she can just mail the detachable blades to Melbourne to be sharpened and keep multiple spares but that's a bit too much hahaha.
Same! Even though I'm small-sized and everyone said I'd have a better time with the 7' and that it'd make me "faster" but honestly I rather feel stable, then at least I'd be fast and safe haha. I agree that if you're ultimately going to get GS anyway, then yeah switching back and forth would probably just cost you the time it takes to readjust. Blades > boots though, you'd be surprised how many second-hand blades with decent sharpen life is sold online. Just doing an ebay search today I found 2 gold seal revs in my size so if you're not rushing to set up your new kit you can probably find a cheap pair!
