Thanks for all of the suggestions, including those PM'd to me.
Yep, I'm going to try a different polarizer filter. I'm resigned to paying quite a bit of money for one, but since that's the case, I want to make sure I get a really good one. In fact I already have 4 polarizer filters, a 49mm Zeiss Jena, a 52mm Tiffen Warm, a 55mm Tiffen, and a 67mm Rokunar. That's also the order of my preference. In addition, I have a bunch of other filters, Tiffen, Nikon, B+W, Heliopan, Hoya, Rollei, Kodak..., and I do slightly prefer the brass-ringed filters. My experience is that regular glass filters are fairly easy to clean. I know how to clean lenses, as I read Richard Knoppow harping on this on Usenet for years. (Brush off dust. Roll lens paper into a tube. Tear in half...) The problem is the coated filters, especially the early Tiffen and B+W MC ones, which even after careful cleaning don't come clean. My main question is have any of the newer MC filters solved this problem? See Photobugs "review" at:
http://www.amazon.com/Heliopan-77mm-Circular-Polarizer-Filter/dp/B0000BZLPW to get an idea of what I'm talking about.
My second question has to do with neutrality. Some of you may remember an article in one of the photo mags, probably way back in the 1990s, about polarizers. Simply place all of the various ones on a light table, and you will quickly see that they aren't all the same color. Back then, some brand's warm version was actually more neutral than their regular version. My Rokunar is definitely on the cool side, and I don't need a Minolta color meter to figure that out, although I might have one of those meters lying around somewhere. Unfortunately, I can't afford to buy one of each of the filters to see which ones are really neutral or slightly warm.
