ireckon, we knew you were matchless!
Matches work fine, as long as you have a good, bombproof container. In that mode, they have come through for me for years. Something as simple as a 35mm film container can serve, although the K&M match container is far better. Exotac also makes a fairly expensive container that looks pretty good - I have no personal experience with it. For emergency situations, matches on steroids (REI Stormproofs or Lifeboat matches) are the way to go, because the standard kitchen matches are not made to the standard common some years ago.
Actually, I have been using a butane lighter as my first line gadget for lighting fires and stoves and I really can't recall when I had to go to another source of ignition. It has been at least a decade ago.
I generally use a lighter 95% of the time (unless I'm deliberately practicing with a fire steel). Just so convenient.
I've got a Spark-lite in my PSK as a back up.
But I still carry matches. There are times when a lighter has a hard time, for example when lighting a lantern. Sometimes it's nice to be able to have a long thing match that can go through holes and such. Also, when building a wood fire, sometimes it's nice to be able to angle that match up under things in a way that I couldn't with a butane lighter. YMMV.
HJ
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