I would like some opinions on this one. I just purchased a 19 cubic foot pony bottle, bracket and regulator w/micro pressure gauge. My question is if I have the pony bottle, do I also still need to have my octopus on my main regulator? What are the advantages or disadvantages of having or not having the octopus?

My thought is the octopus is not very useful to begin with except for your buddy. Most regulator failures would also cause the octopus to be useless. Out of air situations make it useless again. I feel if I have a complete redundant air system then that should be sufficient. If a buddy ever needed to share air, they could always go for the pony regulator or if they grabbed mine (that is what I would expect) I could use the pony. I just think it is silly to have extra things hanging off of my BC that I don't need.