A few notes.
On the Parker refills, I no longer see and X-Fine, so no idea if they still make them. I saw a Parker refill with different packaging, and "new improved ink," so it is probable there is again only one line of Parker refills.
Hmm, I never thought about the stylus being interchangable as a refill. I'll have to keep that in mind and check for them.
The Rotring Orange is the nicest, I have tried, but some priming is necessary if it has not been used for a while. I believe the Lamy Orange is shorter than std. so be careful. It was first, and I made an adaptor to use it in a regular friction fit socket....a small piece of brass sawn off of a Fisher adjustable size refill.
Of the friction fit refills, the Lamy seem to write the smoothest and are more like a regular medium point. Of course that uses more ink. If you want finer stick with Fisher or another brand.
If you do not like pressurized Fisher refills, perhaps you could cut down or remove the plastic top from Parker. The textured Parker carbide ball really does write well.
My refill from Fisher in the telescoping pen is great, but I have one of those write forever models that splotches so much I stopped using it...yeah eventually I'll send it in.
I disagree with one of the comments on the regular Cross refills. The newer ones are superb, a different, more vibrant ink.
Sorry to hear the Cross gel ink smears.
Parker gel points do not smear as compared to their regular floating ball point and since neither writes especially well (as of a couple of years ago.. a dead heat..) I do not see why they do not discontinue the regular floating ball and stick to the gel.
My instructions to my "floating ball" Parker Sonnet mentioned using a ballpoint, but when I excitedly checked with Parker, about the adaptor to use their great ballpoints, the person I spoke with said, to paraphrase, Huunnnh????
