Opinions on Presstek Aurora plates

[geozinger]

Just a few years ago, after we had gone through the transition from Violet to Thermal plates, we settled on the Kodak Sword Excels. And now that we have a couple years' worth of experience with them, they're running well.

However, ownership wants to go totally chemistry-free. We had been in discussions with our equipment rep concerning the Kodak Thermal Direct, when my production manager (who had been a pressman) brought up some very good points concerning some shortcomings the Thermal Direct plates have on a typical printing operation. In fact, they may be enough to knock the TD's out of the running.

The next week, our equipment rep came back a week later with the district sales manager for Presstek. He was pitching the Presstek Aurora plates (to run on our Screen platesetter), but I have no knowledge of them. I haven't researched anything from Presstek since we ruled them out after our Violet platesetter experience.

I haven't heard much about the Fuji chem-free and everybody by now knows about Azura, which would probably be my choice to replace the Swords if we went chem-free, based on what I've read on message boards like these. (not to mention Steve...)

Any opinions or users of the Presstek Aurora plates out there? Anyone using them with Screen platesetters?

TIA