No offense at all. If you have the time and patience to spend on something by all means do so.

Here is a thought from where I come from:
In my neck of the woods time=money. Time is something you can't get back..no matter what, so by all accounts, probably the most important thing in life (IMHO).

I also grew up in a farming community.

The 124i's do last pretty well. But, like all systems things with moving parts can and do wear out (voice mails especially). I wouldn't say new is always better, but I would say that depending on how important phone service is to you..and only you can gauge that, sometimes you have to invest in infrastructure to keep things running and not have down time. You can, depending on company size you can eat up a few grand in an hour in lost wages for people being idle.

No offense taken nor given.

Coral Tech
www.pantelonline.com