In reply to scope:
Give up what, climbing? - nope
Much as I like the UK adjectival+technical grade system, I'm not trying to keep it going no matter what. It still works for me, but that's because of my climbing background, and what & where I climb.
This poll and my earlier one are merely attempts to get a slightly more quantitative feel to some of the ideas/issues than the many threads of comments/opinions - not sure it's worked but I thought it was worth trying anyway.
Ultimately, what matters for all grading systems is their utility; i.e. how well they convey the necessary information (whatever that might be). A lot of what all these trad grading discussions are about basically come down to two things:
- The existing system is broken, do we try and fix it, or do we make significant changes/replacements
- How do we retain the good bits of existing systems, but still get rid of the poor bits
Personally, I think trad technical grades are living on borrowed time. They could be fixed (and maybe if there'd been enough impetus 20 years ago they might have been and we'd be having a different discussion), but the changing demographic of climbers (i.e. more wall >> sport >> trad) is swinging (or has already swung) the balance away from that to replacing tech grades with French or Bouldering grades (as appropriate to each climb).
Post edited at 18:45