I think a lot of the problems people had with the early (10+years ago) Hughes cams stemmed from them being ground by Engle. That was about the time the ZDDP level in most of the motor oil went down too. Their cams are now ground by Bullet.
Engle did a reasonable job, not as good as Bullet, but I think they fell victim to the mineral dropout on conventional stuff.
I kind of wish I would have purchased a roller 5 years ago. I paid $180 for my cam from them and had it on the shelf, so I put it in. Looks great, idle is fantastic, throttle is fantastic.
The next cam I go with will be made by my friend Scott at Cam Research. I may try his break in service too, depending on how radical it is, but he's down the street from me and does custom grinds, so it seems dumb for me not to do that.
If I were going to spend money now and did not have that option, while I praise the Hughes modern cut and love the one I have, I'd be into trying a Howards, just to see how I liked them, from what I've heard.