I share your opinion of REI and Backpacker. A few REI employees have been quite good though. REI has become the K-Mart of backpacking and stocks what sells, not what is best. Also, because of their policy of accepting returns, they have quit carrying a lot of the light weight gear because they got too many returns when the items wore out due to misuse. My problem with gear reviews is that one person (usually a big young fellow) is sent out on one trip with an new item and knows that it is his "job" to come back with something good to say about it. I am small, older and female and usually have needs in equipment that are 180 degrees from the reviewer's needs. Hence, his blatherings about how wonderful the equipment performs, is useless to me!

Now for hiking poles, I too have been a late-life convert. I love them! I resisted for years because I viewed them as more weight to carry. I finally started using them last year and realize that the advantages outweigh the weight (no pun intended!). My only complaint about my poles is that my hands just are not strong enough to adjust them in the field. I can never get them tight enough on my own. I would rather have poles that were custom fit for my height with no adjustment feature. It is annoying to have one pole collapse on you and not be able to fix it!