Hi, oem front pads are terrible (in my opinion) almost no stopping power. Ferraro ds2500 are pretty good not so when cold but still much better then oem. Pagid best in all conditions but most expensive. Can't remember exact model but do a search and you'll find
I spoke with them, they said the brackets whilst very good generate most of the 'unwanted' noise against the flat boot.
I also got the impression the only options were decat or their cat.
Had similar experience with dampers coming back with some chips, Simon offered to recoat them but was too much hassle. Overall though the powder coating is pretty good.
Update following my original post...
have spoken with Simon at CF several times and he tells me the original damping is there 'somewhere' and that I just need to experiment with the clicks. After much experimenting, I'm on 11 and 10 from fully soft! To me that's as close to oem but its still...