I had a couple pairs of Ahead sticks. They bent and broke, mostly because of rim shots. Also, the urethane sleeves on them are good for about one song (rock/punk/metal) if you change them properly. They're not cost effective. I ended up buying sticks from different manufacturers after that (I had used one specific one before the Ahead sticks) and went with the ones that felt the best to me and lasted the longest.

As far as cross sticking, I tried it just to see what it would sound like and you get the metallic click/ping you'd expect from metal on metal contact with the rim.