Well in your position I'd "Deal".
I accept the interesting comments on my polemic and I probably ought to have another look at Pocket FMS. Also it may be that the o2 xdas I've used as pdas are less reliable than other brands of pdas.
All the same I'd still go for the 196 and upgrade it to the latest operating system (4.40 from memory) and map database via the Garmin website.