I've used cheap cheap school regs to my personal, pretty expensive regs and there isn't a huge difference. They all do their job, some just do it better. Personally I love my scuba pro MK25 and still haven't every quite got use to my maximus. The hose seems too short when it's under my arm. Get what you've used if your happy, and like what others said get what can be serviced since that's a factor for you. About the dry mouth, the maximus and other sherwood regs have a metal thing in the second stage that they claim helps. I've never noticed a difference but I don't normally have that problem.