I just had to say that I used the baking strips for the first time today when I baked the cakes for my daughters castle cake and WOW!! what a huge difference in the height of my cakes! Usually they rose in the middle, and some on the side, but I always felt I was not getting the full potential of height on all my cakes. These strips did it, boy! I don't think I'll be able to bake a cake now without them. 
Definately worth the investment on both sets ..... anyone who questions whether or not to try them, I say go for it! I only wished I'd had them last weekend for the other cakes I had to make!! Oh well ..... live and learn.
yeah they do work great. but using my wet towels works just as great and are cheap well free! 
Okay, now I'm curious...how do you use the wet towels to make the cakes rise?
I too used the baking strips for the first time this pass weekend. This is the first time i had a perfectly flat cake with no hump. I highly recommend them.
Pat
i used the baking strips exclusively until a baker at a pathmark here in new york told me to try the wet towels and from then i'vr only been using the towels. save sooooo much money and works to a T. there's even a weebsite that has this technique i think it's baking 911.
simply strip the towels and soak in water and with safety pins pin them around together around the pans. i usually double them so it won't be too thin. I have leveled cakes all the time 
They are a great investment, but one day I ran short by about 8 inches in getting one of the pans circled with the strip. To far to run get another package of baking strips so I too a old bath towel, cut a strip the size of the baking strip and doubled it, soaked it and pinned it to the baking strip. It worked just great and I still save it for emergencies. Little ragged around the edges but it sure got me out of a pickle. I did though make sure that the baking strip was pinned to the inside of each strip.
The following just came off of 911:
http://www.baking911.com/pantry/list_kitchenstuff1.htm
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