I love the feather artist club razors, I have two at the present, the Japanese style non folding SS and the non folding DX .
I prefer the SS because of the head geometry which makes it an extremely easy razor to use and it gives me fantastically close shaves with no irritation what so ever.
I started off with the pro guard blades just to be on the safe side but quickly moved on to the pro blades when my confidence had built up.
The blades will last for at least ten shaves before I swap them out, I could probably get more out of them but why push it?
I would recommend these as an alternative to traditional straights simply because there is no stropping or honing to do, just put a super sharp blade in and shave and I cannot see how a traditional straight razor can give me a better shave.
I also have and use many DE razors and can get perfect shaves but not with the ease of the AC razors.
I also use a couple of traditional Japanese iwasaki kamisori which is probably closer to using a traditional western style straight razor but I find these a little more chalangeing in use.