Lavazza Espresso Maestro Classico 10-Capsules

I read a few of the negative reviews that mentioned fitment issues and coffee not coming out properly etc, but it seemed at least some of those also mentioned this was happening on their plastic pods. Well, now they switched to aluminum pods so I figured, for $.26 a pod I'll give these a shot. TLDR;There were too many issues with these and I recommend to stay away. Issue 1: Package arrived damaged in one corner. Upon opening and inspecting, two of the six 10-pack boxes where half damaged, so about 9 pods in total looked completely mutilated. OK, snapped a photo, contacted Amazon and they refunded me the purchase and recommended I either recycle these, give to a friend or donate. So I decided to donate to science..... Issue 2: As I proceeded to unpack the outer box, I came to realize that the Variety pack I ordered was no variety at all. Each of the 10-packs inside was exactly the same, namely the 5/13 strength "Lungo" flavor, which would have been the only one of the variety I actually didn't care for. Issue 3: I tried using an undamaged pod using my trusty DeLonghi, when the button was pressed, only water came out, indicating the foil wasn't properly breached. I stopped the pour, dug out the pod from the collection bin, and sure enough, no prick holes in the foil. I proceeded to massage the pod a bit, thinking maybe it was a little bent etc. put it back in the DeLonghi, tried again, still just water still no holes. Grabbed another pod, this time a slightly damaged one, put it in pressed the button and this time, the right noise was coming out AND coffee (Imagine that!!). Coffee wasn't very strong so I tired another pod (failed) and another pod (failed) ,and after the third "another pod" finally coffee came out again. Realize that at this point I'm at about $1.25 per working pod. Upon inspecting the failed pods, I noticed that the aluminum foil on those that failed was very flat and sinking into the pod, and on those that were working it seemed full and was "ballooning" out. I figured that this "ballooning" was what allowed the blades to reach the foil, so at this point, without much left to lose I proceeded to take a known failed pod from the refuse bin, and I stated to really squish its body round and round so that the foil ballooned out. Sure enough this worked on every single pod. There were a few that I over-did and they seemed to created to much back pressure on the machine, at which point no water at all came out, but it was simple enough to find the correct method. Issue 4 (The dagger to the heart): After all these admittingly enjoyable experiments, the one thing science couldn't fix (Unless I feed the grains to my cat kopi and wait for her to poop them back out) is that the coffee just didn't have good flavor. I understand this could be because it was the 5/13 roast, or that it could have been due to over or under pressure in the pods etc. but really, Lavazza, you had one job. ONE! For now, I'll stick with Nespresso originals for Decaf and a few other flavors and with L'or for the risterro. I'll throw a Peets in the cart every now and then, but those haven't impressed me much either. Good luck to all! Edit: I'm also noticing a ton of water collecting at the bottom tray and that some capsules just fall right through when dropped in.