TNF McMurdo Parka III - controversy?

Ever think of asking the internet a simple question only to end up going down a rabbit hole? This is that, and given the current snow and ice I am still getting, it’s all to appropriate.

I have a McMurdo Parka III and as I was setting up the generator this morning I got to wondering. 1- who’s idea was it to live here again? 2- what made this parka different from the previous two generations. Simple right?

Wrong! What I found was a tangled web of reviews, comments and forums going back decades! People yelling about a hood that didn’t zip, the fashionability of it, or types of fill and quality. That and there was simply no clear answer on the differences between the versions. I found it bizarre and interesting given TNF being more of a premium contender.

Could it be that people are particular about the gear in their load outs? (Yes, and rightly so) or was there something else going on?

It seems the new one, just named The McMurdo, has 600 fill vs the 550 but it’s also waterfowl vs goose down. Some would cry foul on that.

And that’s what brought me here, and I’ll wrap this up in a similar fashion to how it started, with a couple questions.

1- does any of this really matter? 2- if it does, which is the best Variant?