@grant.margaret makes a fair point about patching being standard. I actually read a forum post once where a guy tested a secondhand drysuit with a repaired knee and it held up fine for a few years. Still, charging full price for damaged gear seems off to me, especially if they didn't mention it upfront.

Right? "Just areas the stores left" - exactly, its a symptom not the cause. The dead zones are like a feedback loop, once a few anchor stores go, the foot traffic drops off a cliff and then the smaller shops can't survive either. I watched it happen to my local mall, they lost Sears and then within a year the whole food court was half empty and the corridors felt like a ghost town. People stopped coming because there was nothing left to come for, not the other way around. The dead zones don't kill the mall, they're just the visible parts of the rot that already set in when the management stopped caring.

Last month's reviews? Nah, too small a sample to trust.

Wait, you actually saw it in Phoenix? That must have been wild with all the dust blowing around. @david_adams is right about the disaster movie thing - I felt the same way when I saw mine. The way the air turned greenish and that low growl before it hit. My knuckles went white on the steering wheel. Had to sit there for a minute after it passed just to calm down.

Oh absolutely, the fine print is wild.