The best set I've had was a set of Lowa Tibet pro GTX, still wearing them and showing no signs of giving up the ghost yet. I've always bought my boots in store even if I have to travel to get them it's worth it. I can only say that it hurt twice. Once paying for them and the other time breaking them in, man alive were they hard to break in 6 weeks in all. I can safely say I've had no blisters even on 30 mile hikes over really rough terrain and have bagged a good few Munro's in them. I quite fancy trying a set of Alt-berg Mallerstangs though, seem to be pretty decent.