Yeah - the best arbiter is you in terms of self reassurance, but not all shops carry what we'd recommend.
The problem is of course that there's no way you can tell how much experience - or most importantly, relative experience - any of us have: There are those who for example recommend the AKG K81DJ's as being vastly superior to Bose Triports - while apparently not being aware that the K81's are notably more muffled, boomy and slop-bassy than the Triport. The problem is like most places in the Internet - you'll get replies where the person typing has zero experience in reality, just whatever s/he's culled off Google or in this case, Head-Fi - with no comparative frame of reference.
If you don't need isolation, I'd try various open Sennheisers in your case - the
HD485 from the newer lineup for example, along with the HD555 - and if you can spot a Beyerdynamic DT231 around, all the better.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
