So I got the Cinders...Here' s what I think:
Great tire. I asked around and narrowed it down to this and a maxxis tire. I decided on this and couldn't be happier. Alot of the soil around me is probably 90% sand. The closest trail is a motorcycle trail that is mostly sand also. Riding with the default Specialized tires on my rockhopper just wasn't cutting it. Going into the main part of the trail (the 'pipeline' it is completely sand, and can be very loose sand in alot of spots at that. While I could hammer through it with the regular Specialized tires I was actually getting a little bit of speed with the Cinder on my back wheel. Even in the harder packed dirt trails that branch off of the main one I was getting better grip. It really really showed on the hillclimbing.
I was also impressed with it's ability on the hard packed gravel (think closest you can get to being pavement without actually being pavement). Everyone was saying it was really slow on pavement or anything like that. But I didn't really notice it being that much slower.
I have nothing bad to say about this tire yet. I love it.