I'm glad to see you fellows have the ability to poke fun at yourselves. I'm certainly laughing "with" you. I feel the same way when I hear of folks putting their gear lists on spreadsheets. The last thing I want to associate with hiking is spreadsheets.

Having said that, I have thought the same thing about the tent stakes and have gone without them. I figured I have a knife, I'll just widdle a point on 4 sticks and voila. But I found it to be a pain in the rear that left me with a knife to dull to cut my salami. The sticks have to be somewhat close to live. If they have been dead for a while, they just break when you try to drive them into the ground. The weight penalty, to me is worth it.