I am new here on this site but boy is this a SMOKIN thread. I didn't know there was so much ANGER out there. I myself have read my own cards nearly daily with the same deck I found in an old shop in 1982. Because it was an antique deck I have always thought my possession of it was meant to be and the deck and I have bonded. I guess that makes 25 years with the same old deck. ( Etteliia Book of Thoth ).
BUT I still read with other decks from time to time and especially for others. Hell, I will read with a regular pack of playing cards if that is what is available and my querent does not mind the lack of messages from the majors.
I have become so familiar with my Etteilla that I certainly don't even notice it anymore. I have stopped looking at the little printers flaws,the court cards shoes, the colors etc, because I know them so well.
I found this site because I am starting to design my first tarot deck and was curious to see how people use their decks and feel about them. I have recently bought some new decks to see how they are constructed and made. I have found that I enjoy looking at the differences and designs on them.
So- I feel that in using my old familiar deck I am reading more intuitively because I am in no way studying the images.
With the new decks I am expanding my imagination by "seeing" the cards through the eyes of their designers. Thus I am intellectualizing my views of the cards more. It is sort of the same experience I have when doing a reading for someone else and they ask a question based on the way a card image looks to them. For instance, someone once asked me if the 9 of swords was like a bed of nails and I would NEVER have thought of that- though it is apt. If some designer made a card with a woman sleeping on a bed of nails for the 9 of swords, then I would have been open to that thought.
Both insights are valuable I think. Two ways of traveling the same road, with probably the same destination.