ShriekingSheet

I never liked the black series Odysseys myself. But I've had a similar problem to you in the past, in that so many putters in the market do play quite hard. That said, I'm a big fan of the new stick I picked up in 2008 - the White Hot Tour #1. I find it vastly more comfortable to putt with on faster greens, and it plays fine on slower ones. Aside from the club itself, as a point of technique that might help with your problem, another possible and common factor causing the ball to come off "hot" is that you could be striking the ball slightly low on the putter face. This is area of the face plays much harder and gives less feedback and feel. It's a simple matter of practicing keeping the putter as low as possible to the ground on take-away and through impact, using a higher part of the face which does play softer. Try it!

Wow, you're going to find a serious difference in yardage there!

I use a 54* and 58* two wedge set-up, with '09 Vokey Spin-Milled. Had toyed around with different combinations over the years but found, personally, that the weaker lofted option of 56* and 60* was not for me. The 100-110 distance is one that pops up so often for me, and I found that the stronger SW allows me to cover more ground comfortably in that area, where as a 56 would struggle to get to the 110ish yardages. With the 60*, I found it quite one dimensional, and loved how the stronger 58* could be used for more of a variety of shots and distances, as opposed to being restricted to high fluffy shots.

The most worrying factor is the temptation among retailers, as thin margins become thinner, to actually stock counterfeit clubs which can be obtained at much lower prices than whole-sale bona fide equipment.