I wonder if anybody has any general advice for playing with heroes, in particular:
- are there any standout routes for non-split play
- should I seek or avoid the popups
- any thoughts on cons, partiularly Essence of Celerity, that wouldn't be obvious from trying it a couple of times?
Any thoughts, suggestions, anectodes, or general navel gazing would be welcome.
As for builds... The best times I've got are on my sin (narrowly beating my warrior) with this build:

SoH is microed on me. The dual inepttude mesmers are really good in this physical heavy area; the BiP keeps them going and losing SoGM off the commune rit is a small price to pay for it. I keep thinking the Panic mesmer could be changed for more damage, but whenever I try it (e.g. EA fire ele) I go slower and I'm not sure why.
I've run a frontlining spirit spammer rit with bomber + fire eles + mesmers, which worked quite well but the Consume Soul spam really hurts.
On y Ele, I tried my usual AP/air dungeoneering team (2 hero backline), which is not as quick -- it seems to miss the frontliner balling. I did find AP + Meteor Swarm more effective than usual because there are a lot of ranged foes who bunch and stand still, and the Ebon sin stays alive long enough for the knockdowns to start.
My necro (AP/MoP) and mesmer (Wastrel's Panic or Ap-AE-EWAS) didn't do as well as the Ele.