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Your problem is that you started buying Garmin kit when they reached the Microsoft Vista stage! From a usability perspective, their product peaked about 7 years ago. Since then they have had to scratch around adding functions to support their business model.
I've finalised my set-up now:
Main navigation: Garmin 705. Old, but just works and gives 17h battery life with backlight.
Back-up. OSMAnd running on my phone (Blackberry) mounted on my stem cap. Tested this yesterday and it gives really good quality maps (better than Garmin 1000). Too power hungry to keep on but will switch it on in cities. May not bother taking the second 705 now I'm confident in this.
frank9755-
To be fair, I bought the HCx exactly 7 years ago and years later the 800 was given to me.
It has been a constant battle from then on to get a bug-free cycling GPS suitable for the kind of shit I do. The Edge 1000 was close but they screwed battery life and it's still not 100% stable.
Currently: 1000, 800 and etrex for backup when the other two crash. Not if, when.
But I may change this and run a phone with RWGPS or similar installed instead of the 800.
hippy
I sent my 810 back for a refund after arguing with the retailer that it wasn't fit for purpose. I still use my 800, which is much more stable and the 1000 which was rock solid right up until the point I added an external SD card and EU maps.
I've seen some of the ELEMNT dev chatter and it looks really good, really promising. I'm not ready to jump on it yet though - for me it's still unfortunately a case of better the devil you know. For the amount of rage they induce, I've bought a lot of their shit... 800, 810 - returned, 1000, nuvi ??, Etrex Vista HCx, Etrex 30x.