horseplay, I wouldn't personally mix it 1/2 and 1/2, but you can buy oil that is already blended 1/2 and 1/2. I used to use Castol Syntec Blend in my past Rangers and what.
Aldive, you are correct, you don't NEED to do this, but by going straight to Synthetic, if there is a ton of old oil buildup, the Synthetic will clear it out quicker than a Synthetic Blend. If you have a lot of buildup and the sludge comes in all at once, it can clog oil lines and kill the car (talking from experience here). Also, a lot of times the reason they don't recommend going to Synthetic on higher mileage engines is because the seals get old and shrink some. Regular Dino fills in the gaps often times and if you run a straight synth, it can clear this out and you can start having seals leak (again, speaking from experience here). So, by running a blend, it will not wear away at the sludge as fast and may reveal a problem to you before it gets too big to be a problem.
Honestly, if you have under 100k on the clock, you shouldn't have ANY problem running a Straight Synth right off the bat, but I just personally would rather ease into it, saves you a few bucks too when you're doing the oil change.
No one has to do this, but its my routine, I've even done it on brand new cars when I was going to switch to Synth. But, every person has had a different experience with their cars and that affects their outlook on this kind of stuff. Killing an engine switching to Synth too fast has caused me to be more careful with it (of course the car that I had problems with Synth on was a very badly Treated Toyota Pickup with about 100k on the clock, your engine is in FAR better condition so many of the issues I had you won't have)
Good luck, and you will love the feeling of having synth in your engine, I actually noticed a slight seat of the pants difference (mostly in how quick the engine would rev up, but it was very very very minor, probably wouldn't even register on a Dyno or anything).
