Yes, I've been using those for years and there's some excellent recipes out there. I think the point with DIY or DIE is all about going into the minutiae of how to construct recipes from scratch.
Every published recipe of his I have tried has been, at best, average, in fact no that much better than what I have managed to mix myself. Equally, the mixes he comes up with off the cuff on his mixing show, are not as good as the likes of "Nevans" and a few other well known mixers come up with (IMHO, of course). However, as you say, he is a mine of useful info on recipe construction, flavours and other mixing info. If you watch his show on a Friday he usually pushes his 'one shots' etc which will give you a good idea of what to buy to get an unbiased idea of how good/average a mixer he is. A bit like taste, it's all in the eye of the beholder mate.
Have you seen any of the DIYORDIE Developed shows on YouTube? It’s basically three very good mixers including the extremely talented FolkArt that build recipes from scratch and shows you how it’s done with the why’s and wherefore’s. Unfortunately they have disbanded now but there are many episode to watch. I found their shows very informative and easy to watch without all of the shouting and loud noise that seems to be the trend these days.
+1 re 'Developed', a most excellent and informative show; could never work out why it was replaced with the new 'noted'. My personal pref on 'Developed' was always ID10-T, his very Capricornian (not to say he is a Cap) dry humour always made me laugh and I have a few of his very excellent recipes in my rotation.
