My plain transportation saved my life more than once. If I had lesser brakes or tires, I would've joined a couple major highway pileups at a rate of speed that would yield an unknown outcome. Its best to watch the crashes from the rear view mirror. Cheap or OE might not have been too effective.
When compared to Akebonos, my Raybestos EHT's were always 40% cheaper for full front/rear pad sets. $60 for a full set of EHT that would cost $100 for AkebonerProacts.
Front only pads were $50 for the Ake and $35 for the EHTs on another car. Not sure why they cost you the same but the Raybestos price/performance ratio seems excellent.
I've replaced a ton of centric warped rotors. I don't think their quality is on par with Wagner or Raybestos, even though I'd wager the castings probably come from the same prison child labor foundry in asia. I won't use centric rotors anymore. I don't have an issue with Stoptech Ceramic and Sport pads since both seem to be an upgrade from OE, as are many of the store branded pads from Autozone, AdvanceAuto, Carquest, and OreillyAutoparts. The OE/Advics rotors seem to be excellent. I've also used Fremax/Napa rotors without any issues. If you have money to burn, the EBC pads are a great upgrade, but I don't use or recommend the Greens... either get the Reds, Yellows, copper free ExtraDuty, or Ultimax... Once I priced the ExtraDuty pads for the SUV, I decided to skip them. Hawk are still around. Haven't seen any big advertising for them like the ol' days. Same can be said about Carbotech, Porterfield, PerformanceFriction...... They make excellent pads but seem to limit their production to various automakers and are leaving out plenty of the newer cars. Could be that too many drivers want quiet and dustfree and some of the best brakes will make a little noise and produce some dust. God only knows why some consumers only want silent, dust free, mushy pedal, and lasting forever pads that just don't work too well.
No one remembers what happened to SatisfiedBrakes? A little fraud with their brake pad formulas caused their bankruptcy.