Interesting about the organic /inorganic compounds. I looked at the cool stop site and there are red and silver pads for the Avid brakes. It doens't say anything about compounds. The rim brake pads have a detailed page on that. They do have a sintered one that should have some metal in it. The braking perfomance has always been great regardless of which pads. IMHO
FWIW, I tried Azonic pads (they were silver if that means anything) and they didn't help. Also, the backing plate was thicker and they were a pain to install.
One other thing that came to mind is with car disc brakes they often have the backing plate coated with a hard rubbery stuff or they come with goo to put on the back. I wonder if this matters for the tiny bike pads
I do know that mine are much quiter now even with the roundagon rotor in the back ( I bent the newer avid none roundagon and put the roundagon back). This is on a mountain bike that gets the rotors dirty pretty quickly.
Jeff