[Robin]

I'm a little late to this thread, as I was on a brief trip to outer darkness, but here are my two cents:

My favorite boots of all time were a pair of Vasque Skywalk II's. In general, Vasque makes some of the best boots on the market.

When my Vasques died, I went to the REI and they no longer carried my favorite Vasques. So I bought a pair of tank boots, the La Sportiva mountain boots, with crampon nubs and the works.

The tank boots are too much boot. They were expensive, and they are heavy. They are incredibly well built, and offer the best ankle support I have ever had in a boot, but I find that I seldom use them for most of my hiking.

What do I use most of the time? A pair of Keen sport sandals.

Many ultralight hikers swear by the sports sandal as the best all around hiking shoe. While it offers little ankle support, the ultralight community offsets this weakness with skill. Simply put, a very good hiker with a pair of quality trekking poles seldom needs to support her ankles with layers of leather and gore-tex.

In SoCal, I do almost all of my trail hiking in my Keens. I do all of my desert hiking in my Keens. The only time I pull out the tank boots is when I make my annual trip to Glacier, where I do a long overnighter into the back country. When it comes to trekking where there are no trails, the tanks are perfect. Likewise, the tanks are excellent on ice and snow. But for 90% of my hiking, the Keens are best.

If you REALLY want to spend some serious money on cool trekking equipment, invest in a pair of carbon fiber trekking poles.

The Dirty Hippie is right on in most of his comments. The weight in your pack (and in your gut) is what determines how sturdy of a boot you need. The ultralighters don't need a sturdy boot because they carry so little weight. IMO, ultralight, or a sane variation of that (no need to drill holes in your toothbrush handle, imo) is the way to go.