well let me put it this way. ive used hok for many years. i was even a jobber for awhile. i dont use it anymore or sell it. i got away from it maybe 7-8 years ago. for the most part is seems its not even the same product lineup anymore. their whole system has basically changed. in any case i never thought their stuff was expensive compared to any of the major paint lines BUT the coverage is so terrible you need 3 times the amount of paint to get the job done. i can mix any hok color here with either wanda or diamont when i had it and have it cover in 1/2 the amount of coats or less. hot pink pearl for instance. that was always 8-9 coats to cover. there was nothing special about it at all. there is no reason it should take more than 3 coats for that color. i formulated that recently in wanda. covers solid in 2 coats. as far as candies go, their is nothing wrong with the kk line. that is the concentrated dyes. you can mix those dyes in to spi intercoat clear and make a nice candy basecoat. thats always how i have done it. i never use the urethane candies. i dont use the kk line though anymore either. i use basf carizzma dyes. honestly a dye is a dye though. they are all basically the same from company to company. alsa, hok, ppg, osf, sem. just mix them into a clear binder like spi intercoat. with a standard lineup of 8 dye colors and my wanda system i can mix any color in a hok chip book or any book for that matter. i can make the colors look better, cover better and the versatility is just something on another lvl than working with the hok system.