OK, I'll add my $.01, and that must be taken as coming from someone with only 4 yrs. experience with a bow, starting with something (fibreglass) that should not even be called a bow. After a year I upgraded to a Brazilwood bow which I have now re-haired with black hair and have been using for the past few years with some different rosins. I do practice daily, so the four years has been fairly fruitful, but also full of experimentation and some dead ends. I use a German style bow also and Helicore Orchestral strings.
I started with Pops on the advice of my favorite string shop friend here and that was great with my old cheap plywood bass and about all that would get a good sound from that instrument. Still, it was pretty harsh. On the recommendation of my teacher, I cut that with Hidersine #2, couple swipes of Pops, couple swipes of Hidersine. That was a lot smoother sounding and still had fairly good grab if the bow was warmed up. That might not be the same as the Hidersine Jeff used. I also had some "give-away" Hidersine all-weather rosin that fits Jeff's description in total;- totally useless.
I started trying Carlsson rosin when I purchased a spare bow while my first bow was being repaired due to a careless accident and I found that while it was less scratchy sounding than Pops, it didn't have dependable grab on the low strings and also created a huge amount of powder. By this time I had upgraded to an inexpensive carved bass with 5 strings and getting that low BB to start early in the morning was like an old Diesel on a cold day, so it was back to Pops for a spell. Finally I started using Gaston Brohan's Oak in all three grades. That is certainly my current favorite. Depending on the weather, I get good results with all three grades but reserve the hard grade for temps above 80 F.
I still check back and forth with my spare bow on different days, which still has white hair, just to make sure;- but it seems so far that I have just been confirming my preference for the black hair. I find that I use far less rosin of any kind with that hair, and a couple of swipes with Pops can last a really long time, but it is also really scratchy with the black hair. The oak medium works best when it is not too hot and I will probably go back to the oak soft in the autumn. I like being able to mix these when it seems useful. Having 3 grades of the same stuff makes getting it just right easier.
I have found it very useful to make sure the bow hair is warm before I add any rosin to it. I just slide it briskly over the strings and usually after a few passes it starts catching and I can tell if I need to refresh the rosin. In spite of my best efforts, I just can not get rosin to build up on my bow hair, my strings, or anywhere on my bass. It seems to come off gradually as a powder onto the strings and wipes off with a soft cloth. There are some very small specs on the body of the bass, but it is finished with nitrocellulose and the rosin doesn't like to stick to it and it comes off with a little Gibson guitar polish.
Also, I've had the same cake of Pops since 2002. In an odd turn of circumstance, I actually had the Pops for several months before I had a bass. It was fresh in 2002 and does not seem to have changed or hardened at all. Like Ken reports, it is a fairly messy, sticky stuff that if left out of the container on a table top will flatten out onto the table in spite of the paper catsup cup it comes in. It must be kept in the plastic box or it will glue itself to something. The Carlsson was almost as bad.
I would imagine that depending on the bass, the strings, the bow, and the hair, and also the weather, that there is just no one best rosin for every player in every situation. It isn't dirt cheap to experiment, but fortunately rosin is not so expensive that it is cost prohibitive to try some different ones out. Definitely it seems that one will work better than another for most players.
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