VP959
For under 15,000ft, 175kts you only need 71 watts peak at the antenna. Stilll significant power.
CAA for many years proposed a 'low cost, low power' transponder. In spite of many voices saying 'it won't work, and no one will build it for £500' they persisted.
Surprise, now no one will build it and finally doing a trial, it doesn't work (and has been quietly dropped from their recent consultation).
Fuji Abound
You suggest that to make you feel happy I should spend several thousand pounds (and still not have a certified TCAS system that will help me). I suggest if you want to stop bumping into me, or many other gliders, in cloud or in VMC, you spend a few hundred pounds. Alternatively, (since my carrying a transponder is not a panacea) you only fly IMC in controlled airspace where you will have a full radar service to ensure your safety. As Prof. Chris Reed tactfully points out, some pilots require others to spend large sums of money (but do nothing thermselves) to minimise their own risk.
Alternatively, we can all carry on doing what we enjoy with a demonstrably tiny risk - remind me how many IMC glider/power collisions there have been?
As far as 'normal gliding areas' goes, mine is approximately the right hand two-thirds of the 1:500,000 S. England chart (and occasional sorties into Wales), excluding those classes of controlled airspace where I can't go.