I have a medium-priced Bell Helmet about 4 years old. Included pads were thin to start with & wore out after a couple of years. Bell discontinued stocking replacement pads for that model so I stuck in some fresh replacement pads from a previous helmet. Actually pads might not even be necessary but for the rough foam imprints + Velcro attachment circles which can irritate the scalp esp on hot days.

Visited local Performance shop & saw that most if not all helmets had extremely thin pads. I checked out a medium-priced Louis Garneau helmet that had such thin flimsy pads that they were not attached properly & was impossible to affix pads properly. I can understand that overly-thick pads could interfere with proper crash safety but these 2 mm pads are terrible. Motorcycle & auto-racing helmets have much thicker foam that doesn't seem to compromise crash safety.

So are there any helmet-producer companies noted for comfier/replaceable padding?

Also it's bizarre that very few current cycling helmets are produced in safety colors. Older cyclists remember when hard-shell helmets were just beginning to be popular: some bikers used bright orange or yellow MSR helmets. Majority of current cycling helmets made with poorly-visible colors, many of them made in black, dark blue etc let alone safety-yellow/orange. They even make bike helmets in camouflage colors. This is crazy, helmets work a lot better when the motorist sees you vs hitting you.