I've heard of a couple of people complaining about the X Scooter's clutch being less than reliable. I'm a total luddite, I like my technology simple (easier to fix when they break) and you don't get much simpler than the mechanical clutch of the SS & Gavin (an aluminium disc).
Scooters are great but on the other hand they come at a price. You really do miss an awful lot of things. I used mine only in caves and recently having gone back and dived the same places on fin power I was seeing things that I'd totally missed before, even places that I'd scootered five or six times.
Like anything, rebreathers included, they are a good tool for the right job. I've seen loads of people in the UK, especially members of the Secret Society of Miserable Gits & Senseofhumourectomy Survivors, who dive with them because they are just the underwater equivalent of a designer handbag. I do love watching them heaving them in and out of the water and staggering back and forth to their cars for a 20m quarry dive
