I'm not going to be helpful in this discussion since my daily earbuds are Westone 3s, but I'll say I was not impressed by the HTC ones. Then again, I think Westone ruined all earbuds for me, haha.
Funny enough I didnt even take these out of the box when I got them. I am with Scott, I got the beats freebies with my Rezound and still use those. I recently did the Harmon Kardon hack so I went down stairs and got the buds out of the box and they are at an acceptable level for free headphones. Best ever? No. But what did you expect. These are good enough for most of my listening situations.
I really like the ear buds. They do look fairly cheap, but they produce quality sound. I haven't had any high-end ear buds to compare, but I had a pair of Beats ear buds with my old EVO LTE and those were absolute crap.
I've posted elsewhere that I think the included headphones are junk. If you move at all while you wear them, too much noise is transmitted acoustically through the wires and you hear a constant rubbing/thumping sound. Not good for active people. I also find the control button too unreliable. It seems to get randomly triggered when it's not even being pressed. And finally, I don't think they're easily stowable; it's a pain in the butt to get them coiled neatly and another pain in the butt to untangle them.
iPhone earbuds are superior, and I don't even like those . . .