What's your favourite gear ratio?

Do these use the same red plastic cleats as the Time iClicks or is it still the brass/alu thingys? Got a pair of them last week and they are already getting stupidly chewed up by fairly minor usage.

did a bunch of research before buying new pedals for my roadie and this seems to be a very common problem with the time iclic pedals. Shame, cos the ease of entry looked nice.