I have a 2009 Gary Fisher Tassajara. It comes with the Shimano M-428, 22/32/44 teeth crankset, which is an Octalink type. I'm not sure what the BB specs are, but I've been happy with the stock one so far (never needs adjustment, cleaning, etc.) Lately I've been getting chain suck when shifting from the small ring up to the middle ring. I suspect I may have worn my small chainring relative to my middle ring, as I'm a new rider and ride a lot of tight, twisty single track, so I'd go whole rides (weeks or even months) in the small chainring. So, I want to either replace the small and middle chainrings, or perhaps the whole crankset.

When searching for chainrings, they all have "Chainrings from Shimano HollowtechII & Octalink MTB cranksets have different length tabs & are not interchangable" in the description. The problem is that none of the ones I've seen have said which one they are compatible with! I want to get better chainrings than the ones I have (machined/forged/heat treated/etc. as opposed to stamped), so direct part number replacement is not an option. Do they make higher quality chainrings for the octalink? Which ones?

My friend has an FSA V-drive MegaExo crankset, brand new, still in the box that he'll sell me for $100. He says that he thinks the BB will fit my shell, but I'm not 100% sure he knows what he's talking about. My reservations would be that he got it as a warranty replacement because his previous one was always getting contamination in the BB and it scored up the shaft enough to need a replacement in less than a year. I don't want to replace my maintenance free setup with a maintenance nightmare. Also, the small and middle rings are stamped so they are not an upgrade over my current rings.

As another option, I'm looking at the Shimano SLX crankset in 2x9 22/36/bashguard that I can get for 163 shipped. I forgot to mention earlier that my preference was for a 2x with bashguard all along, which is another reason I'm reticent about the FSA.

What would you do?

Thanks in advance,
RM