Recently I had to say a final goodbye to an old - must be getting on for 15 years - Mizuno stand bag. Like an Aerolite but with a removable "saddle" holding most of the pockets, so you could remove all but the essentials if you wanted to carry really light. A clever 7-way angled divider system (Kabuki?) which doesn't seem to be available any longer. The bag has been taped, patched and repaired over the years, but finally has given up the ghost. I decided to replace it with a Big Max Dri Lite Eight, which I thought would be a good all-seasons bag - fairly waterproof, light weight, good capacity, decent price.
In use though, this bag has proved a huge disappointment. It's badly designed and badly made. The straps have about as much padding as an army mattress and the triangular junction piece digs in under the shoulder blades, so I replaced them very quickly with a very comfortable old Sun Mountain harness. After only a few weeks of post-lockdown use, the legs are already flopping down badly when the bag is being carried, something not helped (maybe caused) by the fact that anything heavy in the insulated drinks pocket, like, say, a bottle of water, pushes one of the legs downwards. Lots of other features just seem poorly thought-through after the Mizuno - try getting more than fingertips into some of the small pockets. The legs are not anodised or powder coated but painted, and apparently about as able to stand up to tough treatment as Gunner Beaumont (if you remember It Ain't Half Hot Mum) - the paint is already scraping off in places.
So not my best buy, and I'm now looking around for something to replace it. Ideas? I need something relatively lightweight these days, old age is catching up with me and I still prefer to carry for most rounds. But *ideally* I'd also like something with more than four dividers. I looked at Mizuno's BR-D4, a nice bag which is really at my upper weight limit, but it seems hard to find in stock anywhere right now.