I used to use a poly/gut hybrid for quite a long time, but then started to realize that I was spending so much money on the hybrid that I was reluctant to restring when I needed to BECAUSE I spent so much on the string. In other words, the more expensive the string, the longer I forced myself to play with it, regardless of whether or not it was still playable.
The poly would go dead within a week, yet I would squeeze another month or two out of the strings anyways because I wanted to get my money's worth. What I found was that I was CONSTANTLY adjusting my game to account for the string variation during that time. So when I restrung, it was like "WOW, these new strings are awesome!" It was like night and day between the old worn-out strings and the new ones.
Now I spend $3 on a set of strings and string every week. My strokes never have to change and I always get consistency from the fresh set of strings. Of course, this is only useful if you string your own racquets, but my point is that trying to play with a gut hybrid can cause more problems than it solves. Sure, you can play great for a week or two, but once the poly (or whatever other string is hybrid with the gut) goes dead or loses tension, you're forcing yourself to play with a sub-par stringbed.
Just my opinion, but I think it's probably more commonplace than people would imagine. I think people force themselves to keep playing with a poor performing gut hybrid simply because they spent so much money to pay for the gut. And we're not talking futures tournament players here... my guess is that the OP is probably a 4.0 or thereabouts? Heck, maybe even lower. I see people talking about gut/poly hybrids who are 2.5-3.0 level players.
