I'll chime in. Long time lurker, first time poster.
First I work for an established headshop and have extensive personal experience with many brands of vaporizers. I've had my iolite for about a year now. Been a great device.
I just got the iolite optimizer and I personally think it makes a positive difference. I came to see what people thought, and was shocked to hear it called the "deoptimizer". It truly "optimizes" the heat distribution. I've used it on and off for 2 weeks now and I feel that I get much richer vapor production, but bowls are finished sooner than without it. Normally i'll sit on a loaded bowl for approx 15-20 mins, but with the optimizer i notice the burnt popcorn flavor sooner, and am changing the bowl at around 10 mins.
The optimizer is placed either around the heat pin, or into a loaded herb chamber pins plunged into the herbs (which then slides around the heat pin when placing the chamber onto the iolite).
The herb chamber is the metal bowl with the screen in it. I'd like to mention that you load the herb chamber, not the area around the heat pin.. I grind into a small dish, and then suck the herbs up into the herb chamber. Even with dry herbs, loading the chamber like that will be tight enough for it to stay in the bowl. you do not want to pack the herbs because that will further restrict air flow. I load it approx halfway full (either with the optimizer or not).
With vaping, less turns out to be more. we're working with hot air, not a permeating flame, so we need as much open available surface area as possible for the hot air to pass over. When people come into the store I work at, and say they dont like the iolite, 8 times out of 10, they're over loading the herb chamber, and / or packing it down.
I've been meaning to get more involved in the forums here. Lemme know if you wanna discuss my methods or have any questions.
Cheers!
Phyto-PDX
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A vape before bed brings peace to the head
edit: cleaning up the post, editing a few things, clarifying some others. ^_^