When your packing light for extended foot travel or for a 100mile float trip with a 200 mile Beaver plane drop, packing all the extra gizmos adds weight. This last trip we even threw out most of the guns and ammo as we headed into bear country for 10 days as we were over the limit. Every little item adds up. I totally agree with product creep destroying certian products, but since the unit already does the basic function of GPS locating I would think that would still be with in reason. I am not sold on the need for a keyboard or a bunch more message functions because If I want that then I'll bring a Sat phone. I think the basic functionality is great, just wish I didn't need to carry a seperate GPS 90% of the time. As it stand the 4 of us on these trips take 4 Rhino GPS, a Personal Locator beacon(expensive if used but works anywhere, Spot has been unusable for days in Alaska and worthless in the Pacific), and a Satalite phone. The phone is because we have one guy that needs to be in contact with his Doctor once or twice a trip to adjust his meds. We haven't used the spot until last year, but like the tracking application for our families to were where we are at.
