Is Schwert still around? I looked, and his last post here was about two months ago.

I agree it looks like a lot of stuff, but it is destributed well enough that it isn't off balance, and most of it is pretty light. And since it lives in the vest, you don't loose anything becuase it is always IN the vest. Things get lost when moved from garmet to garmet, but if they always live in the vest, they are there when needed. The down side of this is, if you get it unbalanced, it can do some interesting stuff to your neck- I wore a vest like this for about 8 years on a daily basis and I can feel snow coming right between C1 and C2 becuase it wasn't properly balanced.

Now, I think Schwert might have a little more redundancy in some areas than I might carry, but I also carry more tools than most people think is needed- my bag of tricks, and before that my vest of holding, even has a small selection of sockets! It's what makes you comfortable. I never pick on a man's choice of comfort item so long as it is within sane limits. Anyone needs a backpack nuke to sleep at night.... Well, I might move if he sits next to me on the bus.