The cord can be a pain sometimes, but that is the only issue I have found. Gotta be careful doing that head bobbing thing.
Not sure what your friend means by losing the feel, but SS plays with feeling galore so that must not be it.
I am just guessing here, but I bet your black box won't drive monitors anyway, only powered speakers. If so and you have a set of computer speakers, you could connect them to the box with a 1/8 adapter either to the R/L outs or even the headphone jack as another option. That's how the POD works anyway.
Otherwise headphones sound great, cost way less than equivalent monitors and let me rock anytime without bothering others.