I have to say that wanting a release AND wanting light AND wanting free pivot for climbing all added up for me to switch from tele to Dynafit. I do miss the feel of a great tele turn in deep powder. But I don't miss it in crust. On our tour Saturday, there was a point where the other AT-er in the group and I were waiting on our strong tele skier pals at the bottom of a crusty section through a tight slot, and he commented to me on this very fact. That said, other than in heinous crust, I never see strong tele skiers causing ATers to wait. And I recall dusting some ATers on my first trip to the SW chutes as we did some rolling terrain on the traverse back to the south climb.
My last tele binding was a 7TM (the one from just before they made a free pivot model). I have some pals who tell me every time they see me that it's an awful binding from a turning POV, and that if I'd not been on those bindings, I would have kept telemarking longer. I respectfully disagree (that I'd have kept on tele gear longer), as I really made the switch for the ascents, but at any rate I thought I'd pass along that these gear freaks are pretty convinced that the 7TM is not your friend when it comes to downhill control. Prior to that I had Targas on Voile release plates - haven't kept up on the Voile system, which had its own issues (e.g. cracked plates for instance), but this seemed like a reasonable if heavy release option.
