As a guy who likes technical things I have a perennial battle with the desire to acquire more things. For instance - do I need a new tripod? I haven't actually shot with a tripod a lot lately; but with an influx of less expensive east asian tripods coming to market (with a high build quality) my curiosity is peaked. I don't pack so light as to require a carbon fiber tripod; but they are neat.

On the other hand - scrounging can be useful as well. I had an LCD TV sitting in the kitchen that I recently replaced. The old LCD was just sitting around and I noticed it had an odd feature - a button to flip the vertical orientation. An hour later, after going through every plug at radioshack, I had a 2.5 amp 12v AC adapter with the right kind of plug for the TV. Presto - a 10" LCD screen for immediate screen review (for non-tethered shooting). This is ala David Tejada.

More on gear later. This is Craig, front and back.