Not a huge fan of clicky switches, but White Alps have always been too stiff, gritty feeling around the bump (they could just need a cleaning), and just had the bump in the wrong place and an unpleasant force curve to me.
My guess is that you’ve probably mostly tried bad-condition examples. I think new complicated white Alps switches (especially the ones from ~1990) are pretty nice clicky switches. If they’re gritty feeling and very stiff, that means there’s a bunch of dirt/grit inside (and yeah, that will totally wreck the feeling of any type of Alps switch – or any Omron, SMK, Cherry, &c. switch)
Now if it was between White Alps and White Omrons, I'd take the Alps in a heartbeat since the White Omrons are some of the worst switches I have ever felt.
Were the Omrons in bad condition? I find white Omrons to be a reasonably nice dampened slightly tactile switch. The style is in general not my cup of tea, but I think of white Omrons as a sort of upgraded version of an MX brown switch.
I totally agree. My first thought upon feeling white omrons was "is this a rubber dome?". I've heard good things about orange omrons but I've never tried them.
Amber (“orange”) Omrons are completely different, extremely tactile with a very loud click.
