Much thanks for setting me straight.

Vik, Puppy, I will adjust my tire pressure as per your suggestion. I never considered the tire pressure / tire width relationship: silly, I know, in retrospect. I thought running 70 psi on any tire is "low". Since your replies caused me to remove my blinders and become less ignorant of the pressure-width relation, I found similar info on Sheldon's site as well as this: http://www.bikequarterly.com/images/TireDrop.pdf.

Puppy, yea, I've been using Big Apples and Kenda Karrumba for the last couple years. I thought the Kenda is better because it's rated for 100psi. Now--upon further reading--I see that this was a silly consideration, and that tire ratings are misleading and shouldn't be considered.

Baccia, I will take your advice since you're not using it . I figured the reason softride is dead is because carbon replaced it. This doesn't seem to be it. It's simply likely that mountain bikers want the traction benefit of a suspension fork and no sane person wants to give up energy to an elastomer on their handlebar. I already soften the Xootr's ride by having an elastomer under my butt in the form of a Cane Creek seat post. I thought maybe something similar is warranted for my hands in the form of CF.

Being a little less ignorant today, I will experiment with tire pressures for the next couple rides. Perhaps I will end up maximizing pressure on the rear (considering I have a suspension seat post) and dropping it in the front quite a bit (does that sounds reasonable?).