Well, I've been making my own custom profiles for twelve or thirteen years now, maybe more, I really can't remember, so I'm probably biased in favor of custom. But in every instance where I've compared my own to those coming from a manufacturer, there's really been no contest. The custom profiles win out by everything from a little to a lot. But as has been pointed out in this thread, the hardware and software makes a huge difference and if you don't have the best out there, you may end up spinning your wheels. For me, it's a value added part of my business to be able to provide the best quality color from inkjet to offset, and the investment, even though there might not be a direct payback, allows me to do things few others can. Another problem, of course, is that there's a bit of a learning curve to figure it all out, and while X-Rite has certainly done a lot to try and make it a push-button operation, it's really more complicated than that.