Should brands be obvious?

[Magnate]

In r1798 I stopped the printing of "Your ring of Acid spits!" messages on every hit. Once you're at five attacks per round it quickly gets tiring. What happens now is that these messages only appear once, the first time you learn about that property on the item. This works fine for slays, but currently you get no messages at all for brands because all brands are considered obvious as soon as you wield the item.

So which do you prefer: the convenience of knowing brands instantly, or the excitement of discovering them in the middle of combat?

EDIT: Bugger, that was meant to be a poll.