My brother's smart fridge in Ohio started playing polka music at 3:02 that day.

Different strokes, I guess. That fancy rope holds its shape way better for me on long descents, so I don't end up fighting it as much. Maybe your half hitches were more about the throwline you paired with it, or the bark on those oaks down there being extra grabby. The old 11mm is definitely more forgiving when your hands are stiff at 6am, though.

Damn, that's exactly what those things are for! I had a similar thing happen on the PCT where my buddy went ahead and I got turned around after a creek crossing, and the messenger saved me like 3 hours of wandering.

Bargain bin test gear is a gamble every time, and a 40% swing on resistance makes that thing worse than useless for anything precise. Once you catch one bad reading, you start second-guessing every value that cheap meter ever showed you, even the ones that looked right. A buddy of mine found the same problem with a discount clamp meter, so it's not just you, those surplus stores are full of lemons.

Oh man, I've been there. In my experience, supervisors who have been doing this for decades usually have a good reason for their "weird" advice, even if it sounds counterintuitive at first. I worked a wreck salvage in the PNW once where my sup made us all switch to these cheap neoprene mitts with wool liners instead of our pricey dry gloves. I was honestly pissed until I realized I was spending way less time fighting with frozen seals and more time actually getting the work done. Your mileage may vary, but sometimes the old school way really does work better in practice than on paper. Take this with a grain of salt though, I've definitely had sups give me terrible advice too.