I put EBC green pads on turned rotors on my expedition, supposedly low dust perf pads at near 90$ for the front set. Never saw a more black brake dusted set of front wheels than that ride, seemed I was cleaning wheels every 2 weeks. Finally after about 6 months I had enough and went to pull the pads and they were razor thin already, gad multiple cracks, just looked like junk. I put new ceramic pads in and have been running fine for over 3 years. Would never intentionally run any EBC product going forward.
Green Stuff pads eh? That's an NAO pad designed for light-weight imports, and not something I would put on a whale like an Expedition, so I'm not surprised you didn't like them and they didn't perform well for you. That said, I've run various EBC pads on my four-wheeler, mountain bike and a few different vehicles, generally with good results, but you need to pick the right compound for the given application.
To the OP, most of our rigs aren't sports cars and are significantly tire limited when it comes to braking and aggressive driving, so running some exotic pad that is designed to take that type of abuse isn't usually beneficial. Look at the intended use and then buy a pad that is marketed towards that use...if you prefer something with less dust, go with a low-dust option. If you prefer something with more initial bite (I'm looking at you guys with manual brakes), then go with something that has a higher CoF at ambient temperatures (Hawk HP Plus, EBC YellowStuff, etc) and live with the dust/noise/wear. There area reasons most of us run an over-the-counter semi-metallic type pad on our rigs...they're inexpensive and they work reasonably well.
I wouldn't get too hung up on "ceramic" or other marketing terms, as it doesn't always mean what you think it does. In general, modern "ceramic" pad compounds are marketed towards low dust/noise/wear applications, but the reality is that any pad with more than a certain percentage of ceramics by weight can claim to be a "ceramic" compound. Some friction manufacturers, like Satisfied (Canadian) and Carbotech, every compound they make is technically a ceramic compound...and some are aggressive enough to chew up your rotors in a weekend and spit them out.
Tobin