The only one I have in that list is the Thoth. My experiences would say it depends on how you read. I find the artwork beautiful--I always have.
I don't like "dark" things either. When I first got the deck (on E-Bay) it came with two books. So I read the books. I found the card meanings as given in the books excessively dark (pessimistic). I had a lot of trouble reading with the deck initially and that was a lot of the reason. Over a year it wouldn't work for me.
Then last month I was about to do a reading and I know I needed to use that deck. Something inside was telling me it had to be the Thoth. And I read with it as I usually do, intutively, and it read like a dream.
There was even a "dark" card in that reading that came up for me. It was rather depressing looking image, but it really helped me. As the reading was about something that was scaring me, why I was scared, how to get past it...when the card came up it felt immediately like a visual representation of how I was feeling. I could just sense something there under the surface/unconsciouly there that was at the root of the problem and working to put my feelings about the image in the card into words really helped a lot to see what was going in unconsciously surrounding the i\ssue.
So yes, to me I think it can be a great deck, depending on how you use it. Of course I prefer to read everything intuitively anyway.
For me now I find it an amazing intuitive deck. The imagery sparks all kinds of connections and thoughts, but in my experience (and I am sure many will disagree) it doesn't work well when I try to pay attention to the book meanings. I find them somewhat "distressing".
It's an intellegent little deck too, that card that came up was called "Indolence". I had to pull out a dictionary and look up what he word meant. LOL
Babs
