Tom, I have to respectfully disagree with your implication that this is climber error and not the result of a poor product. The way these bridges have failed (going from showing no signs of abnormal wear to spontaneous and complete core and cover failure) should worry us greatly.
If a rope becomes unusable from normal wear and tear, it should happen slowly and give the climber warning. I want my bridge to be able to easily hold my weight even after it gets to the stage of unatool's retired bridge.
Here's an example:
The first time I replaced the bridge on my treemotion, I noticed that the core seemed to be flattening ever so slightly in the center. Since I was working long hours and unable to get to the local Vermeer/Sherrill store (open 9-5 M-F) I backed the bridge up with a second piece of climbing rope. Once I had this in place, I turned it into a game: how long can I climb on this messed-up bridge before it finally fails. Since the back up was a little looser, my weight was still on the failing TM bridge.
We took bets on how long until the bridge finally failed. After 3 weeks of daily climbing, I finally got bored and replaced it with the new one I'd bought. By this time there was a several inch long section where the core was completely gone, but it still held. Any climber not completely out to lunch would have had SO MUCH TIME to recognize that the bridge was unsafe before it failed. That's how I want my bridge to perform.
With these failures, all reports have said that the bridge showed no signs of being compromised before it completely and spontaneously failed in normal use. This to me is a very scary product that I would never use or feel ok with my friends using.
Of course, maybe these reports are wrong or there is more to the story that we're not getting. As for me, I trust the treemagineers because I know the amount of time and energy they spend designing their products. I'm not trying to sound like an advert here, but at these times I think we realize how important it is to buy from a company we trust, even if it's the more expensive product. That extra expense often translates to more time spent in R&D and more control over materials and the manufacturing process.
