To clarify some of my points..
The GG poles never collapsed on me and although of a smaller diameter than the BPL CF Stix ( I used those for one day) they felt secure and for some reason I preferred the feel of the GG ( different sort of vibration from them) .
Mind you I do not like the idea of the one piece poles, those BPL Stix got crushed inside the luggage area of the bus on the way back to Seattle.
The mechanism inside the GG poles is indeed very simple, and that is how we were able to fix them every time. That has not being the case for me with other brands...
When I switched back to the BD (Contour Carbon, twice as heavy in spite of the CF designation) I realised for the first time that my hands are somewhat tired at the end of the day. That was particularly obvious on how the strap felt around my hand/wrist.
To be honest I am not sure I would feel safe enough on the "trails" here with the GG but if I were over there on trails like the ones we did (a bit of the PCT and one in the Olympics) I would switch to the GG LiteTrek 4.

Franco