Lee, while I completely agree with what you say, I must point out that having the possibility of being 50 cm away does not imply that you must be 50 cm away all the time, but that you could benefit from that very special feature should the possibility arrive. Over here in Ibiza there is a lovely an unexpected (often disregarded by tourists) abundance of orchids, especially from the Oprhys genus (there's even an endemism, O. balearica). They pop on shadowy patches of pine forests and along the sides of roads where you can observe them from 20 cm without the risk of any damage (basically, because in some cases you might as well be standing on tarmac with an orchid a feet a way). While it's nice to watch them through the Traveller (which I would rate as an overall better device than the Papilio, also way more pricy), the experience of observing them through the Papilio is simply on quite another level of detail and in my experience creates a certain awe that the Traveller simply don't. But then, YMMV, obviously.
As a general purpose device, or if I was to choose and keep only one, I'll obviously take the Traveller any day of the week (I sure love mine), but for that particular purpose, the Papilio offer IMHO something that the Traveller just can't match, because if you're on an "orchid hunt", you are likely to stop by the bark of a tree and observe the lichens or the work of that tiny spider that lives underneath that petal.
(I attach two surprising examples of orchis by the side of the road, easily reachable without any harm
).
