Can't speak for your partner but there are lots of very good climbers who do not need or use tricams. I started out with a passive rack and certainly paied my dues 30 years ago with tri cams and hexes but could easily live without them. Every time I have done a route in the last decade where the guidebook warned that tricams were mandatory I have managed to protect it without said tricams. The black tricam is only 3kn. The same size BD TCU is 10 kn... whatever.. keep fiddleing as much as you want just be aware that it is a fettish and not the essentual big deal that the tricam groupies seem to have bought into...