I know in the 80's, there were some people that got some interesting looks by use of an x-hole, but it was a different environment then.  It was short oil from the get-go, whereas today's fried heads that call for plastic often have carrydown further down the lane that creates a different look than we went for back then.

To put things in perspective, those were still the days where the Black U-Dot and Blue Hammers were beginning to control a lot of the space on ball returns everywhere.

As others have noted, the x-hole is mainly going to change the look...not the hit.  A label shift with a pancake block would probably impact hit more than an x-hole.