A very nice gun which I've been temped to buy myself, and an excellent choice for CC. I also used to carry a .380 due to the compact size, but found that it sometimes had feed issues with JHP ammo, and also a surprising amount of felt recoil which caused the flange above its grip to bite into the webbing between my thumb and forefinger.
I traded it in for a nice compact .45 (Taurus Millennium; 10+1 double stack mag) which fits my hand better and has considerably less recoil even given the larger round.
My experience was over Thanksgiving weekend of 2009 when I went shooting with a cousin of mine and his wife. She was trying to decide on a carry gun. We both tried the .380 and decided that, if it were the only carry gun available, we’d probably not want to carry. As you mentioned, it had a nasty recoil, one worse tham my S&W firing .357 ammo! Bottom line: I advised her to do as I do and get a hammerless revolver for her carry gun. She’s done that with a S&W .38 special and is very happy.
I like a Kahr CW9 (7+1) for its concealability.