I'm new to smoking and have been influenced by what is new, hot, HTF and popular. I feel like this has hurt my chances of trying new lower end stuff.
Side note: I think companies have to come out with "new" stuff to keep people talking about their products. It could be as simple as renaming a long standing cigar from an old staple name to the NEW HOT THANG in order to drum up business. In bowling they come out with a line of bowling equipment for a year or two and then discontinue the line only to come out with a NEW line of the SAME stuff with different colors and cooler names.
Fantastic post BTW.