The thing with experience is alot of what we all have learned and utilized over the years might work great for us, but be ineffective for someone else, slight deviations in sizes and applications can take your idea and render it ineffective for another hiker.Besides some people hike for years and really dont learn as much as others who may be more savey and inventive towards gear and techniques. That being said forums like this are effective for hashing over a variety of techniques and gear and finding out what works for YOU, it might be quite different in your case then someone elses. As far as being less then civil on this board, glass houses and all that.