Ernie Ball continues being one of the most notable strings maker for years!
From Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards and Angus Young to Jeff Beck, the Steves (Vai, Morse and Lukather), John Pettruci, Joe Bonamassa, Matt Bellamy and so on, so on, so on... These strings hav played the History of Modern Music.
I often use these strings as I play a lot of different electric guitars and it would be too expensive to use other ones.
I have used other brands and models but I always turn to the 2223s; why? They are cheap, with good sound response and so simple and comfortably to play that I recomend to my students.
I think: if the greatest players (although I'm not one of them) used these strings that, in fact, are cheap, and created those mind blowing guitar sound; if the technology has increased their quality maintening their low price; if they sound good for me... Let's Rock!
For a less positive point, it's obvious that the brightness of the 2223 last shorter than a 15 or 20 bucks string set but, for my necessities, the Ernie Ball 2223s are definitely "Goodfellas". ;)