I like crumpets very much. I've tried to make them from scratch with limited success. Maybe the manufactured ones are simply a different animal from what would have been a traditional home-made crumpet. Its the holes; if you make them yourself you can certainly get holes in the dough but in my experience they are not as large or as deep or even as a shop-bought crumpet. And. lets face it, the joy of a crumpet is the butter melting and dripping down into the holes.
One thing I've discovered is that you can toast shop bought crumpets straight from the freezer. This is great for me because I'm the only one who likes them here and I would normally only eat one on any occasion. Now, I always have a packet in the freezer in case I get crumpet craving.