What's the prevailing opinion on vent holes? Good? Bad? Ugly? Do they really do anything for you?

Thinking of having a vent hole put in for my thumb on one of my bowling balls after not being able to clear my thumb from any of my bowling balls last night.  I added tape twice last week when I was having to really grip the ball to hold it, and then suddently last night I couldn't get my thumb out of the ball even after removing all the tape and residue.  It wasn't hard stick, but there was an audible pop with each release and it completely threw my shot off.

On a side note, I use urethane thumb slugs drilled just big enough for me to normally have 2 to 3 pieces of white grip tape in, which usually give me enough room to remove the tape to get a good fit if my thumb swells, last night was an exception, I'm not sure why my thumb was so big.  Aside from the vent hole idea,   I think I'll make the holes bigger so I can get more adjustment with the tape.

Does anybody else have a thumb/finger morphing issues?  How do you deal with them?

And what are you using/not using for thumb inserts?

Edited on 4/19/2005 11:38 AM

Update on the vent hole experiment:

I really had doubts as to how much of a difference it would actually make, but I was really amazed.  My thumb cleared the ball so cleanly I couldn't feel it at first, as I was so used to the feeling of friction and a slight delay from the time I relaxed my grip to the time my thumb completely cleared the bowling ball. It took me two games get the timing down as I was letting the ball go to early.

I would definitely recommend vent holes to anyone having release problems, especially with their thumb.