Regarding the OPs original question, all ceramic pads that I have ever installed take a couple hundred miles to fully bed, even after performing the recommended bed procedure. They will feel like they require significant pedal effort during this time, but you will notice that they get increasingly more responsive.
Over the years I have tried many different brake pad compositions on a wide variety of vehicles, mostly sports cars. Due to my experience, I always go for ceramic pads unless I need ultimate stopping power and fade resistance (track car or heavy haul truck). I like the low dust and I personally really like the linear pedal feel with no initial bite. It is very intuitive.
On a side note, I recently installed a set of Wagner ceramics from Advance Auto with new rotors on my 01 Jetta Sedan. I absolutely love the feel of them. Right rear does squeal just a tad under very light pedal, low speed, right hand turn braking, but I haven't tried fixing it. 99.99% silent with excellent linear pedal feel providing confidence at any speeds a TDI will see.