I think sometimes we underestimate how long it takes them to warm up to a new hide. Mine will not hide in anything new until has been in there for weeks - even if it becomes his favorite place after that. I don't think it's entirely about how inherently comfortable it is, I think they are just extremely conservative when it comes to deciding that it's safe to hole up and go to sleep. When I have changed to new substrates, he has responded by spending a couple of weeks only using the hides that are tubes and not the ones that have a substrate floor. In other words, changing the substrate means that an otherwise unchanged hide is a new environment, whereas a tube that has its own floor hasn't changed. So he sticks with the ones that haven't changed until he gets more comfortable with the new floor.
I recently heard about a study on the survival rates of cobras (I think?) that had been taken from human-occupied areas and relocated to more acceptable (acceptable to the humans) natural habitat instead of just killing them. It turned out most of them got picked off by predators pretty quickly - way faster than should be the case if it were just that they didn't know where to find food. It seems likely that a big reason is that when removed from their home ranges they don't know where the safe refuges are, which they need for thermoregulating and to escape predators. In other words, they don't just disappear down any old hole they happen to see; they have a mental map of where the good spots are that are safe and predictably provide the conditions they need, etc.
That to me supports the idea that given a choice, snakes would rather use familiar hides that they know are safe and predictable. It obviously doesn't mean you shouldn't ever give them new ones; just that you shouldn't assume the new one is inherently unappealing just because the snake doesn't use it immediately.
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