Max, sorry about the delay and I still haven't had time to read everything in between. Yes, I have tried other things including rain coats and a Brooks windstopper (whatever they call it) jacket. When the raincoat gets wet, it is not effective for my other purposes — but it has done what it came to do. The Brooks jacket is nice and bright but not particularly light or effective at any one thing. Perhaps it is that when it is "that" windy I really like the extra warmth the windfleece provides. I live in an area where I must buy through the mails because Boston is probably where I would need to go to view multiple items of anything. This and limited financial resources restrict my checking a lot of alternatives, but I feel happy with the weight-warmth-windblock balance my fleece provides and I feel it could cost me a lot of money to find an effective multi-season alternative that would save a small amount of weight in the overall scheme. Remember where I started my last post: I get cold easily and I am a kinda medium weight packer.
I expect it will be tonight before I can check in again, but I'll look to read the other posts and see if my answers satisfy to the extent they can.
All the best from Maine. Jim
