The scene: Farm strip West of Cambridge. Mission: Coffee and a sandwich at Fenland. So off I chug in my 115 hp Airtourer for the 25 minute trip. No radio at our strip but I gave Wyton a call so I could route overhead and also got basic info from Fenland on arrival. Ditto on the way back. I could have routed round Wyton and phoned for a non-radio arrival at Fenland thu snegating the need for a radio. I didn't see a single aircraft in the 60 minutes I was airbourne. So absolutely no need for a transponder and I could have manged without the radio. I'm sure a lot of pilots do this sort of trip, so what possible benefit would there be in Mode S.
Lest you think I'm a Luddite I do have a transponder with Mode C but it would have been of no value at all yesterday or indeed 90% of my trips..