I've not tried a Hoof, but bradzeera's experience is pretty typical of the other reviews I've read of them. They have a good rep, as with a lot of EQD stuff.
I'm a bit of a Muff fanboy (I have a long-standing obsession with Boris, the Pumpkins and Pink Floyd to thank for that) so I've tried several versions over the years. It's a bit of a cop-out answer, but your own setup and application do have quite a major impact on which one's going to work for you. One advantage of the Hoof (and Mike's pedal builds, if you ask for one) is a mids knob, which can address the issue of not cutting through in a live situation. As far as recording goes, it's less of a problem IME because you have the chance to mess around with eq'ing.
I don't know what version you have, but the EHX reissues sound somewhat different from the numerous earlier versions. The best resource is Kit Rae's BMP site (
LANK), which provides all the info you'd ever need, and then some.
So far, my personal experience with muffs has been:
-Triangle: mild, lower gain, good for Gilmour stuff and palm muting. More of a thick scooped distortion than a fuzz.
-Russian: more cello-like and low-midrangey, but still fairly transparent. Think "Thickfreakness"-era Black Keys.
-IC: gritty, crunchy, more high mids. Less subtle. Billy Corgan toanz.
-EHX reissue: saturated, scooped, loads of gain, unsubtle but the Little Big Muff is less choked and gated-sounding. The Tone Wicker version is more versatile, and the Bass BMP is apparently similar to the Russian era.
The playing and the sound quality are crappy, but if it helps, I hurriedly threw together an audio comparison not long ago of the different Muffs that I own, played with the same guitar and amp to give an idea of how they compare with each other
ANOTHER LANK