Everyone utlimately settles on their own kit and strategies. We discuss sleeping bags, forgetting that at twilight only one person can crawl into the things. If you wake up warm fine, if not then I was right. My being 'right' won't effect the rotation of the earth. If you want to squirrel stuff away and call it a cache, disbursal of resources or an eccentric hobby thats fine. If we ever have some global catastrophe I figure most ETS members will eventually gather in some unmarked Hole in the Wall. We can trade notes and share mutual failures and the one shared success: We had the prescience to prepare and muddled through somehow.