I'm just curious about hearing from someone who plays the pipes AND doesn't have an axe to grind in this "Far Eastern versus the 'Real Thing'" discussion AND who has actually tried the FC pipes. Judging by the photos on the FC website, they're selling what looks like the same stuff that other internet dealers...
I have no axe to grind with FC per se, and while I haven't tried their particular brand of $135.00 bagpipes, I have seen, fiddled with, and tried to make play enough EBay sticks (you're right; the do bear a remarkable similarity) to have formed what I would consider to be a well-informed opinion. It's been my first-hand, real-life experience that most of these are not "playable", and most of these never will be. Just because you can make a sound similar to a car horn with them doesn't mean that you can make music with them, and that's what they're marketed as; musical instruments. I've also seen more than enough frustrated and disappointed newbies who'd been taken in by the promises of unscrupulous merchants and duped into buying "beginner" sets that will never, ever meet their expectations and are really only suitable for nailing up to a pub wall to have formed what I consider a pretty well-informed opinion of merchants who make such promises.

even the name-brand pipes end up needing modifications to suit the individual player and to fit in with a band's sound. We've heard that someone in the forum did get a set of the "Far-Eastern" pipes "playable" after a certain amount of re-adjusting and part substitutions.
If you buy a set of pipes from either the manufacturer or a reputable dealer, you should be able to assemble, tune, and play them within minutes of opening the box. If there's anything even slightly off, a reputable manufacturer will trip over himself to set it right as quickly as possible. Most people who get Pakistani pipes to play end up replacing the bag, drone reeds, chanter reeds, and chanter, (re-tying in bags, re-hemping joints, replacing blowstick valves, often blowsticks as well...ad infinitum) not to suit their individual tastes or to match their band's sound, but just to get them to play at all. Generally, when they're done they end up with a sub-standard instrument that has an odd tone, is unsteady and difficult to tune, and cost about as much as a second-hand set of decent pipes would have in the first place; a truly false economy.

I wonder how many of these experts on Frugal Corner pipes have ever tried a set.
I've handled about a dozen different sets of Pakistani bagpipes, as well as Shepherds, Hardies, Lawries, Hendersons, Dunfions, Dunbars, and Naills (again; this isn't comparing apples and oranges; they're all bagpipes, and all alleging to be musical instruments). How many Pakistani pipes (or any others) have you played?

I've been looking at McCallum and Naill pipes...
I've played them both, side-by-side, with the same chanter and drone reeds. Naill might edge McCallum in tone, but in my opinion the difference wasn't so great as to justify the hundreds of dollars in price difference. For me, McCallum offered the most pipe for my money; YMMV. You really can't go wrong with either one (I play an older Naill blackwood chanter with my McCallum drones).

Well, blackwood aficionados may disagree with me, but, may I suggest the Dunbar P1 pipes? That is what I have and they are really very nice (and, they are much less expensive than blackwood, AND, as an added bonus, they are very durable and don not require as much to maintain 'em!).
Dunbars are fine pipes; Jack Dunbar was a turner for Henderson before WW II, after which he immigrated to Canada and pioneered the use of plastics in bagpipes. Personally I'd go with the P2 or P3; the tone's the same, but I simply find them more aesthetically pleasing. I wasn't aware they still made O-ring joints (a Dunbar idiosyncrasy), but yes; get the hemp joints instead.

Don't get too concerned over blackwood pipes; keep in mind that they've been played on battlefields around the world for hundreds of years in less-than-ideal conditions. Personally, I don't believe that 99 out of 100 experienced pipers can't tell the difference between a properly set up set of polypenco P2's and a set of AB2's (Dunbars blackwood set) at ten paces. I have heard from poly players that you might need to be a little more aggressive with your moisture control compared to blackwood pipes.

By the way...I hear that you are NEVER too old to learn! Especially if you are playing for enjoyment (your own and others)!
Absolutely. By all means, if you want to learn to play, learn to play. Often older folks have the focus and discipline to do what they couldn't do well as youngsters.