I find most of the stuff I buy from REI is hit or miss whether I can find substantially better deals online. As for the return policy change though, that really surprised me when I heard about it relatively recently. Yeah, there are assholes who abuse this kind of thing but was it really so bad that they had to scrap it? Couldn&#x27;t they just update their return policy to the effect of &quot;This isn&#x27;t intended to cover long-term wear and tear. At our discretion, we may reject returns that aren&#x27;t the result of a defect. Just be reasonable.&quot;<p>[EDIT: With often relatively expensive gear that may not be used as much as I would like to use it, I&#x27;ve absolutely had parts break, leaks develop, etc. in things that had only been used maybe 10 times or so over more than a year. Recently, I returned for repair something to the manufacturer--which they fixed--because it was under their warranty but not REI&#x27;s new one.]