For me, the attraction of a GPS is my tendency to just head out somewhere and see where I wind up - I am getting closer to doing this on the bike I also like the idea of being able to download gps points from a brevet route to aid in navigation - though I will never divorce myself from paper maps. My LHT's name is "The Wanderer" for good reason I wanted a more personal name than that, but short of naming him Magellan (hmmm) couldn't think of another name.

As far as the health stats - that is a good thing as well - I cannot generally tell when my HR gets up there until it is WAY too high. I like my Polar HRM just fine though - it will do until I can afford/justify the Garmin. The HRM helps to keep me honest - and I like that it tracks calories