I think a lot of whether a cue hits like crap or not is subjective, personal preference if you will.
I had a meucci for a while that i absolutely did not like. I could make balls ok with it, but i hated playing with it. It felt like a peice of 2x4.
I used to be in love with Joss cues. When i first started out, i saw several older players that had beautiful joss's. My goal for the first year or two of playing was to own one. Then i actually got to play with one for a while.
A good friend of mine bought a 500 dollar joss. After playing with it for 5 minutes i was very dissapointed. It hit worse then the afformentioned meucci. At the time i was very glad i had the opportunity to play with one before i bought one for myself.
I've played with a capone that i didn't care for much.
I also did NOT like the hit of a josey sneaky pete. It hit wayyy too limp.
I played with a philipi that i really didn't like. To be fair it was a sneaky pete so it was prob made from a dufferin so the butt was really really thick.
I discovered predator 314's a few years ago and have been a convert ever since.
I used to work at a poolhall, and the owner had a few really nice customs for sale. He let me hit with a jerry oliver and i immediately fell in love with it. I HAD to have that cue. He gave me a break and sold it to me for 500 since he liked me and i did work for him. Man, i loved that cue. Around that time i was also learning to tip shafts on the lathe that they had there. I would re-tip house cues to practice, and even had a couple people let me experiment on them. Well, when i bought the oliver it had a very low tip, and being the idiot i am i thought it would be a good idea to re-tip the cue of my dreams. While sanding the tip off with the bit, i dropped my cigarette on my lap and accidently hit the ferrule with the chuck that was still rotating and totally f***ed my ferrule up. I ended up buying a 314 shaft for it and i totally fell in love with it.
When that cue got stolen, i didn't really think i was going to get another predator, but a friend of mine sold me a used lucasi/314 combo that hit about the same as my oliver and i've been using 314s and pred shafts almost exclusively ever since.
I had a predator z shaft on a players sneaky that for some reason absolutely hit like CRAP. I hated that cue. I ended up selling it for half the price i paid for it just so i could get rid of it.
Ironically im shooting with a preator sneaky with the z2 shaft which i'm very partial to so i dont know. I can't imagine the 2nd gen z shaft hitting THAT much differently from the first generation, but i hit with Mike Davis's cue (harris with a z shaft) and i didn't like the way it hit either. The only reason i bought my current cue was cuz i hit a few balls with it and ended up really liking it.
I've been rambling for a while

, but to reliterate i think in my experiance its mostly personal preference.