In reply to colinakmc:
> Q5: I guess no company is going to spend money developing a £1000 pair of gloves cos no one will buy them! (Reductio ad absurditum)
Does happen to a degree. Maybe not to the point of £1000 gloves, but Mark Twight for example was involved in developing cold weather gear for US special forces that was pretty much state of the art, and led to the development of new materials that "trickled down" to the leisure market, e.g. Polartec Alpha. I assume the US military is less price sensitive than the average climber.