PIF-wise, all my MCC004 Verbies are similar (except the two spindles Made in Taiwan - which are better, rest are Made in India), tried 5 different burners, almost all available speeds.
PIE-wise, I had one batch which had similar constantly high PIE-levels - tried different burners and speeds (I usually burn max 8x, except if during testing faster speed seems to be better) to no avail.
I bought that high-PIE spindle in early 2009. No degradation so far…
I myself too have cleaner scans using MCC03RG20 verbies… also MCC003’s were great, too bad that you can’t get them anywhere.