I agree with almost everything you said. I understand the trial and error required to "perfect" a product, so my complaints about the fading on the yellow box aren't very loud. Where I disagree is the black & golds; my group hasn't complained once about being able to read the fonts or distinguish the suits. I really appreciated something different like those. As someone who loves the Faded Spade art and font style, I thought the black & golds were in the same ballpark. We just played with them Saturday night, in fact! But as you said, for the price, they are probably the best cards out there right now. Because these exist, I can't bring myself to try another setup of Faded Spades for their price, especially since my first setup had a card that split right in half, from face to back, on our second time playing with it.
Now that they are in Justin's store after I missed the group buy, I do plan on picking up a couple of the professional series setups!