Could I ask why you were bitterly disappointed with you Osprey rucksack Innominate man? A new rucksack is high on my wish-list just now and I was thinking of an Osprey to replace a Lowe Alpine air zone one ....
I'm sure my reasons wouldn't apply to other people but for what it's worth here goes;
It was their Mutant 38, which I could use for climbing (dry & winter as well as general walking). My problem was that I'd only seen it in the flesh in black colour and it seemed reasonable enough. The info on the net gave a list of features as long as your arm and it was available in a lime green colour which I fancied the look of. Nobody had one in a shop to look at (other than the black version) so after trawling for a good price I measured my back and bought a M size lime green one.
It came and as I was removing it from the packaging it was clear that it was indeed very light. Maybe easier at this stage to just list my niggles;
I wasn't impressed with the side compression straps that zig-zagged up the sides. It seemed like pulling up shoe laces to tighten them - you had to pull each section rather than one tug for the whole length.
When you placed anything inside it was visible from the outside e.g. I put some gear in dry bags and stuffed them in the sack and when you looked from the outside you could make out the logos of the dry bags. I know it is probably technical material but it just seemed so flimsy.
I was initially impressed with the ice axe attachment system but in the centre of the pack is a vinyl device (pattern) that acts as abrasion protection - again it seemed flimsy and I didn't have confidence that it would last long and given the thin sack material I had visions of the whole thing wearing through.
Added to which this lack of robustness didn't fill me with confidence as far as attaching my crampons to the outside and with no obvious location for them (i.e.no point of reinforcement to protect the material).
There were several other points which were less problematic but on top of these points left me feeling it was a lot of money for something that didn't seem as 'fit for purpose' as what I already had.
To make matters worse - by chance I came across a Deuter 35+ guide in a shop and inspecting that left me thinking I made the wrong choice. In almost every respect it had +ve points where the Osprey was 'iffy'.
I know this was all my own fault but some of the bad aspects weren't as obvious with the black coloured rucksack and only apparent with the lime green one.
And that is it really (I do have more to say on the matter but this post is long enough and I don't want to bore everyone rigid) and these are the highlights. They may sound incidental as written up but when you have the bag in front of you and you start loading your gear into it there is this feeling of - why did I pay that money for this ??