Larger socks are indeed the holy grail of timekeeping, at least, for myself.
I'm a big obsessive over hi-hats ever since I started mixing and matching. Sure, series hi-hats are fine, like your Zildjian K hats, or A's, or whatever. But why limit yourself to a series? If you want a unique sound, I think everyone should experiment with different hats. I finally arrived at my favorite socks 'thus far. A 16" Medium B8 crash (bottom) and a 16" Pro Series Thin crash (top) both made by Sabian. They're getting up there in age - the Pro series especially. I've used a few techniques to speed the aging process, but they've never been cleaned. They have a crisp but dry mellow sound. I've never played a better pair of hi-hats.
But I'm still experimenting. I've even went as far as taking two 20" inch rides, one thicker and one thinner, and using them as hi hats... Of course, they actually sounded awful I think. But even the thinner of two rides was pretty thick. If someone used thinner cymbals like Zildjian A sweet rides, or maybe even K's, I think it would work quite well. So the next time someone posts a topic about this, I might be using 20" inch hats instead of 16"
The feeling I get from larger hats is a more full sound. I don't think I'll ever go back to 14"s. Growing up I had a pair of really cheap 12" no name hats. So when I saw everybody else using 14" I kinda' always had that wanting for bigger hats. I played 14"s for about a year, and wanted something different.
Meinl make 15" hi-hats in their Byzance line, that sound AMAZING. But I think that's as small as I could go, and still be comfortable. For the most part, I'm pretty loyal to Sabian just because they manufacture more cymbals that sound to my liking. I think if I could afford to do it, I'd jump that ship and get a bunch of Byzance cymbals.