Clint, I'm coming to this thread late, but want to chime in as well. I much prefer to receive young offsets rather than rooted mature plants. While it is fun to see what they look like when grown elsewhere, it is better over the long run to receive young semps and let them establish in your own environment. When I see someone selling mature plants without the young offsets, then I think that the business is likely disreputable. With semps, I have many times received spent, beautiful-looking mature plants that go on to flower and die without producing any more offsets. What I want to purchase is the promise of the future, beautiful plants not a quick, pleasant looking plant that has limited future. Roots, IMHO, are optional for shipping these plants. Keep in mind that rooted plants typically have to regenerate much root mass in order to use them. Also, established roots on semps can be prone to rot when replanted, as you can never get the roots back in the soil the same way as they were when they were dug.
My semps rarely develop the substantial roots as I see on plants from the PNW. NHN and I are in similar environments, so that my have something to do with it. Also, in trading plants, it is an advantage to ship smaller plants. I did a trade a couple of years ago with someone for about 50 new varieties. The largest plant I received was less than 1" in diameter, but nearly every one survived, growing my collection with a lot of new, hard to get varieties. The shipping costs were negligible with the smaller plants and that was important to us.
