in the thread about walking home, I brought up the argument for carrying single use devices, especially where proprietary batteries are concerned. For things like cellphones, music players and PDAs, you often don't have the option of carrying spare batteries since the batteries are internal and can only be charged, not replaced, or are of a weird and expensive to duplicate type (like cell phone batteries). The pro is that when batteries die on one device like the camera or PDA, you can still use the cellphone or GPS. On the con side, you're carrying multiple devices which means you may leave some behind. What do people think? I'd even extend my argument out to places where traditionally multi-taskers are favored. A real ax (even a smaller one, like a boy's size one) and a smaller hunting knife are better then just carrying a giant chopping knife. At the same time, if you feel the need to leave something behind, you don't have to leave several uses with one device. You can leave the ax, but still have the knife when weight or speed is critical. Or leave the camera, but bring the cellphone. Heavier layers of tools can be stripped off, without eliminating whole categories of tools.