[dgludwig]

I like my 9 and 45. They go boom on demand.

I like my 9 and .45 too-as well as my .40. All three go boom on demand. In terms of which one I'd keep if I could only have one and if cost was not a factor, it'd be the "Goldielocks" cartridge, the .40 (of course, the opposing viewpoint might argue that the forty is "neither fish nor fowl"). Unfortunately, unless I should win the lottery or it turns out that I'm a distant relative of some wealthy benefactor like Ted Turner, cost will always be relevant for me and so, for that reason alone, I'd probably opt for the 9mm. What others prefer and for all the good reasons they espouse, is of little consequence to me. There are plenty of good arguments for choosing any one of the three candidates. Each to their own.

For old folks - will a new wonder caliber be introduced before we reside in a urn next to the reloading bench or on the gun safe

I'm old enough (I'll be seventy in a couple of months) to recall a time when a new cartridge introduction happened only once every few years or so it seemed and, when it did, it merited plenty of front page attention on the few gun magazines that were then available. Nowadays, it seems, there's a new cartridge debuting each month to fawn over; a circumstance, I might add, that I find healthy and laudable for the shooting community as well as for the firearm industry as a whole. I think that we're now living in a golden age for shooting in terms of the glut of choices we have-and that some of us have gotten pretty jaded over our mutual good fortune. The more cartridges to choose from and to talk about, the merrier, I say!