I love my XD. It's a ported 40 caliber. Great gun, fits like a glove in my hand. I just don't like to carry it because it does not have a manual safety. Because I personally would never carry a gun not chambered, it gives me a bit of pause know there's little to prevent a discharge if grasping for the gun in a desperate situation. To me, the safety features are a bit silly to argue. A palm safety does little if anything in a situation like that. Even under stress drills the range with training guns, it's almost totally instinctive to grab the gun and find your booger finger inside the trigger guard. The instructer used to put shoe polish on the trigger, you'd then holster your weapon for CCW, which for me was an in the waistband right hand draw. He'd then have some come at you and you'd have to pull the training gun out and say "BANG." The closer the range, the more likely you were to not draw your weapon smoothly and when they were very close, and were able to physically get on you, almost in variably, you'd have shoe polish on your finger. The instructer would often call "CEASE! CEASE!" before you could get your gun on target and check. Busted!
I will preface this all again by saying these are my thoughts and experiences and are based on my education and training going back 20 years or so when I was a very active shooter. Perhaps there's new techinques that may change those impression now, but human nature is a hard thing to change.
We've all seen the video of that cop giving a lecture to a group of students when he goes to pull his glock and shoots himself in the leg. For me, I just trained with 1911 and felt comfortable having the safety as a last resort.
For a double action semi-auto, I'd say it's a decent comprimise. Revolvers are harder to carry and draw, though some of newer ones like the LCR and Bodyguard are really fine weapons that have mitigated many of the complaints about carrying a revolver. Also, anyone who says 6 shots isn't enough doesn't know what they're talking about. If you need more than 6 bullets, you're in a really really bad situation and it's doubtful more will make a difference. Now I'm not saying if you have the opportunity to carry more you shouldn't, but don't not carry a weapon because you don't have 13 rounds. Also, I wouldn't listen to all the talk about calibers either. Anyone who says a .32... hell... even a .22 isn't an effective round is misguided as well. I'd the caveat to that is in northern states where you'll find people wearing multiple layers of heavy clothing and leather jackets. Still... I doubt you'd find anyone knocking a 22 to put on a thick heavy coat and let you shoot them point blank with a 22. You pick the gun not the caliber. Now again, if the gun that works for you is a 45, then great. But 9mm, 40, 357, 38, even many new .32's are all capable defense rounds.
That's probably more than you cared about, but I like talking about this stuff. Most importantly, anything that someone tells you is very much going to be skewed to their own needs, capabilities, experiences, etc. Use opinion like guide, but make the ultimate decisions yourself.
