Lumbar pad or no lumbar pad??

With the weights you are citing, I don't think it should make too much of a difference. That said, call Chris at Zimmerbuilt and see what he says. I guarantee if you can think of it, he will try to build it for you. Great experiences so far with – hopefully – many more to come. Great company. Great products. Tell him you want the light-as-possible-slimmed-down-CDT with lumbar love, you'll probably have it in two weeks.

You can read the long version of what I think by clicking this link:

Paradox Packs Design

Then click the Hipbelt Design tab.

In short, at low weights a lumbar pad works fine. It fails at heavy loads. A properly executed full wrap belt is better at heavy loads, and just as good or better at light loads.

The phrase “properly executed” full wrap is loaded though, because there is a lot of behind the scenes stuff that goes into making a good full wrap. A full wrap benefits from a wide frame, the correct foam, increased surface area on the face, a specific cut, and a mechanical advantage to close it. We spent months developing our belt, and the recipe is difficult. Change the density or thickness of one foam layer in the belt and suddenly it doesn’t work as well.

I believe that right now we’ve got the most comfortable belt in the industry. It’s taken a lot of work to get to that point.