That's weird, could be a bad bucket. Ours looks fine out of the bucket but is just thick, runs fine after thinning and activating. I typically add as much water as activator and then additional as needed.
Yeah, that's been on my mind. I tried it after hearing so many rave reviews here, but it was underwhelming to say the least. I even posted a thread about it being a squeegee climber, but didn't get much in the way of replies. Then when we had a big run of discharge come through I bought the I.T. 5 gallon because it was the only stuff I could get quickly, at first we were put off by how runny it is, we actually use a ladle for it, but after getting used to it on screen we really like it over the gallon of CCI we tried. We are WB/DC newbies, so factor that into my review, but as it stands we'll be looking at the IT bases and super strength pigments as our need for the inks grows.