which backpack to buy?

eww wrote:

So, anyone actually got anything useful to contribute?

I'm sure it was this anything-but-friendly-and-lighthearted sneer at a brody that offended people.

Fair enough, although those who did initially respond with personal experiences didn't seem bothered by it. It was only when I objected to what I took to be an unfounded and racist comment from 1grandidle1 (who as I've already pointed out responded sarcastically to a brody himself) that this 'blew up'.

The likelihood of finding many responders, or even one responder, who has practical day-to-day experience with both of the expensive backpacks you've narrowed your search down to is limited by the fact that both are expensive, both are probably very good, and both will probably last much longer in daily use than they've been on the market to date. Therefore, few if any users are likely to have worn one out and replaced it with the other, and few if any are likely to have bought both for comparison purposes and actually used both of them before returning one.

Fair point, I was just hoping that someone who had been in my position, but who lived somewhere where they were able to get their hands on these products in a store in order to examine them more than is possible on the web might respond with their thoughts. It was the hope that this might still happen that's led me to keep the thread open this long.

Everyone here is a volunteer, none of us knows your level of experience or awareness until you tell us about them, and we all expect you to recognize that and behave accordingly.

My apologies that I didn't explain my background better in my OP, I was just trying to keep the question short and to the point.
A Brody, if you happen to read this, my reply was not intended as a sneer, merely a jokey response to what seems to me to be a rather bizarre and left-field response to that question. I'm sorry if I caused offense.