The stretch waterproof/breathable membrane to me, is just frickin' cool. Aside from that I'd go with Arc'teryx.

Incidentally, field report on the NEW SORD jackets. The stitching came apart in side my pockets already. Not cool man....not cool at all.

Whoah. Not good. Can you provide more details? I've been wearing mine on a pretty regular basis and haven't run into anything yet.

Damn man that's not cool at all...and you already know my opinion on the shitty fucking zippers. Allot of hype surrounds these jackets and while I love mine and wouldn't trade it for anything the qc is generally quite poor and the customer service leaves allot to be desired. Allot of you guy's know the ordeal I had with SORD (so I won't reiterate it again here) but suffice it to say SORD you need to work on a few things.

http://www.lebaron.ca/pdf_files_sp08...misty_axis.pdf

Top left corner, the Axis Rain Jacket, I bought one last year and it's awesome, fully waterproof, breathes well, cheap and comfortable. And you can pack it small in the pocket at the lower back. I got the Moss one (is like a sage colour), but looks like they have a desert colour too.

Same here.. Nothing as of yet. Velcro on the shoulders is holding up too..

Can someone elaborate on the "shitty fucking zippers" ? Mine are actually pretty awesome.

I picked up an Otte parka from Dave's a while back which I'm selling for reasons not related to performance. The times I did wear it I was happy with how it performed. I found I was able to wear it on top of my SORD hardface (both mediums) without any motion restriction.

An interesting note about the three brands is that the OTTE parka is the only one with colour matched zippers. Since all these jackets are marketed as military use equipment, I would expect manufacturers to pay attention to stuff like that (although I suppose it doesn't matter since you are using it for civie activities).

I have a SORD hardshell and a TAD Stealth Hoodie on the way, but if you want something more affordable check these out

http://herculeswear.com/products.asp

Just to update, six boxes from TAD just arrived today :D

I've had my jacket for going on 2 years now and wear it often enough. By about the 3rd time I wore it the Zipper fragged itself and just disintegrated. The Bottom guide tooth tore away from the jacket and the teeth started popping out. It's a poor design. I have also noticed stitching coming loose in the bottom hem. I won't go into the ordeal I had getting the damn thing fixed but I was not very happy in the end. It is a good jacket overall but SORD needs to address some QC issues as well as some design flaws. It seems the jacket when available is hit and miss at best in regards to QC some people get a perfect jacket that is bullet proof...others get a lemon. When something is produced in such small batch lots I would hope that the construction would be very tightly controlled, guess not:(

Here's a question to all the SORD owners then. Were/are all of the hardfaces manufactured in China? I know mine is (just read the label a few days ago) but was there ever a period where they were actually manufactured in Australia? Maybe the first batches?

I know mine was made in Australia because when I sent it back for repairs it was returned to the factory.

Definitely QC issues. Mine came in that last batch from Australia (like Morbs) and I have had no issues at all with it.

I wear it pretty much every day and am no more gentle or rough with it than I am with anything else.

Mine is made in China.

So far, my SORD has held up okay. Mind you, every time I zip it up I think about the zipper issues, and I find myself unusually careful. LOL.

Have two hardface jackets;

Med Tan (Made in AUS): Two years old, and the main zipper has given out on it. I have to hunt around to get it replaced. Otherwise the jacket is fine.

Large Black (Made in China): One year old, so far no problems.

The large amount of QC problems w/ SORD has completely turned me off of the company. I'm just glad that the hardface I bought my dad for xmas last year is still going strong.