That sounds pretty normal Dave. Mine were just like that. I went the expensive route of ventilated discs and billet calipers, but with the supplied Mintex pads they were worse on a cold application. In fact on the first MoT like that, after 1,000 miles they were marginal on balance. So I switched to Greenstuff pads, which not everyone likes. I had Greenstuff with the standard calipers, so I knew what to expect.
Now the brakes are OK, but still without much feel. Slight improvement on standard, but not the step change I expected.