I could be wrong though. I would love to hear from Chestrockwell. I've read some of your articles and many of your posts. Would like to hear your opinion on whether this may be the case.
You certainly make good points, particular with regard to response. As with all exogenous hormones, there are going to be a wide range of responses. Why is this? Well, there are numerous reasons and it could be related to the actual ligand-based receptor, efficiency of nuclear translocation (polymorphisms), or even differences in gene transcription (signaling pathway efficiency).
Then there are a whole heap of non-hormonal variables such as the quality of the product being used, the protocol used, how one's lifestyle variables are controlled (diet/training/sleep/etc). This is why folks who follow me identify pretty quickly that I use a lot of "it depends" and rarely provide "one size fits all" anecdotes.
I know of many people who run pharma grade and simply can't seem to get their IGF1 very high. Now i dont know exactly if the IGF1 is a true dictator of whether your going to get good results but it's something to consider.
To a degree, yes. My current belief is that elevation of endocrine IGF-1 is inevitable, but trying to "limit" it could be a key factor. One of the reasons I believe this is that there is some pretty compelling evidence that chronically elevated endocrine IGF-1 levels may be a negative feedback regulator upon autocrine IGF-1 (which is more important to hypertrophy machinery).
One way to do this is by designing your GH protocol in such a way that it mimics endogenous pharmacokinetics, as best as we can (obviously serum GH will remain elevated much longer when using rHGH).