^ Well, I dealt with him directly and he was very nice to deal with. The bat came out at the weight I wanted. The handle was slightly thicker than what I like but nothing too bad.
The problems with buying bats, especially custom bats, are: 1. people don't really understand what they truly need, they think that a custom bat will fix all their batting problems; 2. don't give bat enough time to open up and maintain it - older the bat gets, the better the ping; 3. best way to use a custom bat making service (hint: to replicate something you own that already works well for you but is about to break or have a back of a brilliant bat for yourself).