You hit the nail on the head with these statements. In my SAR experience, we had two major outcomes - 1)People were delayed and proceeding on their own - we merely made things a little easier, but they would have gotten out of their predicament without our help, if necessary. 2)We could have been standing right next to them and they would have died anyway.

That actually happened to one of our members, a physician. The team on the rock next to him suffered a severe fall, and despite his efforts, "all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty-Dumpty together again."

In fact, we were on scene one Sunday afternoon, treating a fall victim, and a flash flood swept through the drainage, killing nine people. Our efforts did materially aid some folks, but it was a full week before we recovered all the bodies.

What good would would PLBs, MLUs, or whatever, have been?

We did encounter the situation where SAR intervention actually saved lives, but it was maybe 10% (a very rough estimate) of our operations. Wildly exhilarating when it happened....

People is the woods must learn to depend upon themselves in emergencies, not on any outside agency, not matter how competent they might appear to be.

SAR people are bozos on the bus, too.