Jeffrey isn’t too far off here:
About Me
Amy Reynaldo, the author of How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle, is a top-10 finisher at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Her first New York Times crossword byline appeared July 5, 2009. She solves at least three crosswords a day and writes about them here.
Those may not be the ratings I would give, just an observation of what I’ve seen.
Yes, I know. You would 5-star most quad stacks. Me, I tend to 3-star most of the the triple and quad stacks we see these days. I was recently looking Harvey Estes’ thumbnail grids on Xword Info and marveling at the smoothness of his triple stacks and their crossing entries—now, those I like.
But it’s true that an add/drop-a-letter theme is going to have a hard time wowing people.