Icom vs Vertex
Echoing the comments above - the A6 isn't a great radio for a number of reasons, unlike most of its predecessors in the Icom range.
I'll put my hand up here - I sell Vertex VXA-220 radios, they are a fraction of the price of the A6, have great features and work really well. The downside is that there aren't as many aftermarket accessories available (eg cheap speaker-mics) so you are stuck with the OEM ones. They also use an SMA connector for the antenna instead of the more standard BNC, so if you want to hook it in to an existing radio setup you need a couple of pounds worth of SMA-BNC adapter.