As a few of you folks can attest, the 70's pinstripes were much deader than today's. Remo used to promise "That wet flat and funky" drum sound. The formula is different now. Today, among pre-muffled heads, pinstripes are mildly muffled compared to most.
My Aluminum kit is almost analogous to birch. it's a "balanced" sound across the spectrum with no nasty overtones. It's also tonally rounded like maple.
I have been tweaking my kit for recording. My room can be considered acoustically on the dead side, so there is not a lot to exaggerate brightness/high frequencies.
I had EC-1 clears on my deccabons. The problem was, the tone was too flat and the attack wasn't so hot. I dug out some pinstripes and viola: The "octabans" sounded really cool with a nice attack.
I already had evans resonant glass (per recommendation) on the bottom of my kit. Those do help open up a drum with a 2-ply on top.
I tried ec-2. They were nice, but a little too dull on the small toms, and I could hear too much of a plastic slap on the larger toms.
Aquarian response 2 were nice and warm, a pretty good middle ground.
G2 coated didn't sound open enough for me on the small toms, and a bit dry on the larger toms for what I was after.
Gauging the aluminum works a bit like the fiberglass octabans (no overtones) I tried pins. My drums really resonate so they can handle a wide range of heads and tunings. What the heck, $70 experiment.
The pins sounded *perfect* on the small toms. I used just a dab of moongel on the 14/16. What I have is a deep, dark and not as muffled as you'd think sound. There is nice attack, but no plastic slap. And yes, they have a wetter sound than g2 coated.
My .02 cents is that pinstripes aren't evil, especially for rock, metal or prog. Everyone's drums have their own characteristics. The pins may/may not do all drums justice. And they are not for those wanting a wide-open sound. But they work very well in some applications. And the final strength they have: tonal "neutrality." They are neither dark, nor bright. So in this case, I am getting as much tonality from my shells as from the pins.
Pinstripes aren't evil, but some applications of them might be.
I am happy with them.
YMMV