I couldn't imagine hunting without a range finder. I really don't judge distance that well, and its even harder from a stand in the air. I like to know exactly how far a deer is from me, not a guess that may or may not be right. I don't use it when hunting though, I use when I set the stand up to range a perimeter around my stand. When a deer walks in that circle I know it's mine.
And it comes in very handy during shotgun and muzzle loader season. I certainly cannot tell the difference between 100 and 150 yards, and there is difference in point of aim with my set ups, and if it's beyond that I won't even take the shot.
The newer bows do make a difference. I can't believe someone would say that having never shot one. I have a 30 inch bow and it shoots like a 35 inch bow because it has a longer risor. Not to mention it has no recoil to speak of because the limbs cancel each other out and do not throw the bow forward during the shot.
In my eyes the three biggest gimmicks are Drop a way rests, mechanical broad heads and carbon arrows. Not that they are no good or don't work. Just that many are lead to believe that if you don't have them you won't be as accurate and you can't hunt without them. This couldn't be farther from the truth.
Drop a ways work well at what they were disigned for, giving you good rest clearance with arrows that won't allow an aggressive fletching (skinny carbons). In my opinion they are not more forgiving or more accurate. Some designs are better than others though.
Mechanical heads work, especially if you have enough bow to use them well. However many get them as a bandaid for proper tuning and then complain when they have bad luck with them. Mechanicals need to be tuned just as well as fixed blades. Just because they impact with your field tips doesn't mean they are flying well when they hit the target, which will reduce their efficiency. Not a big deal if you shoot 70 ft/lbs of energy with 450 grn arrows, but if you are border line on energy and shoot light arrows you best get your tracking gear out because you may need it. Again, some mechanicals are better than others. As a matter of fact some designs penitrate better than some fixed blades if tuned well.
And carbon arrows get better every year, but the whole "they are straight or broken" line is crap. And while they are durable, they are not indistructable. If you abuse your arrows you better be looking at them closely and often. An arrow spinner is a must!
I'm also not impressed that you can't find a decent affordable rugged 3 pin fiber optic sight. I don't need a fancy $100 sight with 20 feet of fiber optic cable and 5 adjustments on it. Just a nice 20 or 30 dollar one with solid easy to see pins is fine. Rests are the same way. It's getting harder and harder to find a decent rugged prong rest anymore. Either they are cheap POS rests or expensive drop a ways.
Holy crap! I think I'm getting old[
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Paul