I've now had mine for about 3.5 months and I can say that most of the usability issues mentioned above (e.g., twitchy lowering) clear up after adequate practice with the device. It still locks up pretty instantly, though, and because of that I use mine only for sport climbing, TR and gym use. The device is lighter, simpler and cheaper than a gri-gri.

If you do not already have a gri-gri and your reason for buying one is to belay hang-dogging partners up sport, TR and gym routes, save yourself some weight on the approach and buy the Cinch.

For trad routes, I won't use mine until someone does a little research comparing peak force between the cinch and the gri-gri.

On sale for $4.68 at mgear.com, this is a fantastic deal on a strong (9 kN gate open) wiregate biner. It's not as light as the Superfly, Helium, Doval, etc., but you can afford to buy a lot more of these!

4 biners if I'd had to pay full price, but at $4.68, 5 biners is more appropriate.

Extremely well-finished belay biner with a super-smooth screwlock. This is a very nice belay biner even not considering the plastic guard. The guard is the reason to buy this biner though. It takes an extra second when setting up the belay, but it does eliminate a possible failure mode. After a couple weeks you'll be so smooth with the plastic guard that you'll be as fast as you used to be in belay switchovers.

Recommended if you're concerned about cross-loading (or loading the gate) of your belay biner.