I have really big hands, and used the Chouinard/BD Light D from the 80s and the monster BD Big Easy from the 90s before the HotWire. The HotWire fits my mitts just fine, the wiregate action is pretty snappy, and the body of the biner still has a bit of heft that makes it really easy to grip. It's just wide as well as pretty long. Two seasons of scraping on the Red's sandstone have given each a nice patina enhancing the handling. I do use BD Neutrinos as racking biners, but they are too small and fumbly as free biners for me. The HotWires go on both ends of my floppy dedicated trad draws, and serve as free biners. I have friends that say the HotWire wears a bit more quickly at the rope end of sport draws than, say, the Petzl Spirit--something about the respective alloys I guess. But for me the HotWire rocks for trad.

Been using BD/Chouinard hexes slung on perlon, then kevlar, and lately wired, since forever. Picked up the #6-#9 Rockcentrics last season to use at the Red, and it was almost a relief. (I use .5-3.0 Tri-Cam for smaller size passives in the fingers-thin hands range.) I loved the old hexes in this larger size range, but the WC Rockcentric offering is way better. The curved surfaces, great lateral taper, and thin casting of the body all make a lightweight, highly usable passive piece for thin hands and up in these sizes. Great complement to the usual cams, and the Dyneema slings keep 'em where you put 'em. I did notice that every once and a while I'd be placing in a particular crack section and one Rockcentric would be a little big and the next down a little small no matter which way I rotated them or worked them end-to-end in the crack...not a feeling I ever experienced with the old hexes...maybe the dimensional differences between numbers in the Rockcentric series are slightly larger than those between the different hex sizes, I don't know. But that was a pretty rare feeling, and absolutely the only minor hassle I've experienced with the Rockcentrics, and easily cured by plugging a cam. Love 'em, great Wild County design enhancement of a classic.

I've put 18 days in on my Flash so far, and have beat up on it trad and sport at the Red and the New. After many falls, plenty of dirt despite working out of a rope bag, and the usual topping and hanging it's dirty, but hardly fuzzed at all. It handles better now than out of the box, though it was great then. This is my workhorse and I expect to get another season or two out of it easy. I have another manufacturer's 10.3 with a 'Mammut-like' thick sheath. It's a sweet cord and a bit lighter, but though I've got only 5 days on it with the same sort of use and a couple falls, one end is already more fuzzed. You want a rope to use hard and keep on ticking, go Mammut.