Wet weather SSCX commuter

Reliability - my experience disagrees with this, but obviously that's not data. But what does seem to be consistent is the complexity and expense of repairing / replacing a hydraulic system is greater than a mechanical system.

True pro and con discussion this. Agreed, hydraulics are more expensive, but worth the money if you ask me (no surprise). I seem to have been lucky and you vice verca. Sometimes it's like rolling dices.

Durability: I don't care how long my outers and cables last if it takes me 10 minutes to replace them with the same tools I use for my road bike. Having said that my last set of outers / cables lasted three years and two hard seasons. A lot of racers jet wash their bikes here - hydraulics HATE this - it forces dirt into the seals in the caliper...and then the seals fail, and then you have contaminated brake pads and complete brake failure.

I'd like to see you replace them in 10 min with bartape, readjustment and all, however I'll agree, they are fairly easy to exchange but not that cheap if you want something just a little decent.

Pro racers (and dentists) might jet wash their bikes but I've found it common knowledge amoung the guys I race with to simply hose is down at most to take are of our bearings, seals and CABLES ;)

Racers that do use jets are generally also fairly handy using one i.e. turn down the pressure and keep it at a distance when around the important bits.

The freezing thing - that's interesting. Never experienced that. Wouldn't that freeze mechs and traditional road brakes, too?

I've experienced it on regular road brakes and my BB7's once. I remember as a kid, that my citybike with internal gears did it all the time. There are ways to avoid it for some time, but it has to be checked on. More maintenance.

Modulation - all the cable pull calipers I've used have had better modulation than cantis and mini-vs. Having said that though Hydraulics will probably win here against static pad designs, agreed. My post that sparked this discussion alluded to this. However to me that's one pro amongst some deal breakers. I also suspect that the modulation on the Spyre might be equal or close enough to a similar hydraulic caliper. We shall see.

Agreed. The spire will be better but it would have to bend the rules of physics to ever be better than well build hydraulic brakes. A cable pulled system is natually more prone to flex in the whole system. A liquid is stiffer than a wire cable and a piston can be made stiffer than an actuation arm.

Power - not really - pretty much any cable brake that's been set up properly has more power than CX tires have grip.

The part "another part where cables are inferior" was actually refering to the modulation bit. Bad reference, sorry.
Courses in the start of the season can actually be fairly hardpack, dry and grippy. On some summerdays I've experience that my BB7's were on the limit with organic pads, but I'll give you power wise they are not that far off.