I found this helmet article on the Motorycyclist magazine very refreshing in conducting an unbiased study of helmets other than the raters (DOT, SNELL, the European Standard ECE 22-05) performed...please check out SNELL's reply to the study, and the Motorcyclist's reply back to SNELL...food for thought anyway!
I thought this was the best article I ever read in that mag when I still subscribed. Excellant. And the Snell certification doesn't mean all that much to me anymore.
A third vote for the carbonfiber. I had a HD half and it looked ridiculous and stretched my neck 3 inches when the wind caught it! The carbonfiber looks better, feels better and is DOT.