Agreed this is a pretty good summary.

On the first item, rather than relying on a quality map and compass more than electronics, I would say instead just bring a plenty adequate map and compass and have good experience at land navigation, and to a lessor degree, compass skills. But if my GPS tells me that it’s got solid signal from 10 satellites and I have no data to suggest the GPS-given location is wrong, I’ll err on the side of using that data point over my current best guess on the map, particularly if I’m in an area without long sightlines.

I don’t mean to dispute your overall point here, just saying that practically speaking “don’t rely on GPS” is quite different than “don’t trust GPS results”. I certainly have seen situations where the GPS just flat gives an incorrect result. Part of using the tool is understanding the limitations. In practice, the GPS pretty much “just works”, however (within the constraints of how it works and what it can do).

Ahh, this stuff gets tricky to talk about, doesn’t it? For example, by “quality map”, I hope that no one thinks that they have to go out and buy an expensive and tedious to fold/refold big paper map (Green trails, USGS, forest service, blm, whatever).

The idea of a perimeter zone depends very much on the type of trip you contemplate. For trips I hike solo, the idea of an itinerary or a perimeter zone doesn’t make sense. What I do instead is call or email or text when I can to update the home front on where I currently am, plus establish ahead of time a best guess at resupply stop locations. On one such trip I brought a SPOT and punched in “I’m here” at lunch and dinner each day --- but with a solid “set expectations” discussion with my spouse ahead of time about what it would (not) mean if I failed to check in a time or two.

The “bubble of ignorance” with smartphone or mp3 player --- again, very situational. Many, many people walk very long distances solo and listen to music and/or audio books a lot with no issues. It depends on experience and on the nature of the trail in question.

With the above, I don’t mean to detract from the many good points made.