OK, so here’s a simple poll. The answers are generalised but hopefully one of them is reasonably close to how you feel about the difficulty level of Sunday cryptics, given the fact that this has been upped somewhat in a few papers.
MINOR UPDATE: Of course, with this being a blog please don’t feel restricted to just voting. I really would like you to take the opportunity to comment as well.
Incidentally, just a modest plug to say Loroso returns to the FT tomorrow after an unexpectedly long gap – it wasn’t a case of not having puzzles in stock, just the way the run of puzzles was arranged.
URGENT UPDATE Today’s Loroso FT has a preamble stating that all definitions in all across clues have something in common. THIS ISN’T THE CASE – this preamble has been accidentally left in place from a previous puzzle (This has now been corrected in the online version).
Anaxcrosswords 
A lot of people fear the unexpected – witness the wailing and gnashing of teeth when the ST dared to do a themed puzzle. But in time they get used to it, so just ignore them meantime… there is no reason to handicap setters by introducing more rules, particularly unwritten ones, either about individual clues or as here, about complete puzzles
I would have been in the ‘wide spread’ category until your recent ST cryptic, which was like a mental bangalore phal, and made me feel much better afterwards, so I have migrated to the ‘more time to solve so more difficulty please’ camp.
Hmm still not sure here, I suspect the vast majority buy the paper they want to read rather than the crossword they’ll get. I mean if the late unlamented NOTW had the crosword of the standard of the Listener, would you have bought it? (although the chances of winning a prize would be better).
I know many here do the crossword on line for free, but let’s face it that isn’t the way the editor will increase circulation.
I suspect the difficulty of the crossword would be dwarfed by putting a pic of Priceless Di on the front on the Express. 😛 Would marketing be able to tell? The crossword editor will still be last in the queue saying “Please Sir, can I have some space”
Would a strapline saying we have the hardest/easist cryptics (however you try to define that) really help sell the paper?
Sorry been a bad day!
I plumped for option B. I have noticed the DM Sunday Times have ramped the difficulty somewhat and its no bad thing. The two other (excellent) setters vary their difficulty as well in my opinion. Across the rest of the Sunday Crosswords I only really solve the Telegraph regularly and Mr Greer (besides completely floating my crossword boat) usually is medium to medium hard in difficulty but still throws the occasional easy one in.
I’m quite happy where things are at the moment.
I have been used to doing easier puzzles on Sundays since 1950 and would like it to continue the same way.