If I can try and sum up all the vitriol and stubbornness in this thread, both freestanding tents and non-freestanding tents both work great. All things considered, freestanding tents are a little heavier, but less fiddley to put up, especially in adverse conditions. And apparently Cycco had a hard time as a teenager with a non-freestanding tent.

There are merits to both designs, and disadvantages, but for the kind of camping most of us do, it doesn't really matter.

If you want an example, the aforementioned Big Agnes Fly Creek UL-1 has a trail weight of 990 grams (by their website, I don't have one to measure myself). It's a great tent, it's more or less free standing, has 22 square feet of space, and is yours for $320 MSRP.

A similarly priced LightHeart SoLong 6 with aluminium poles weighs almost the same (1010 grams), costs almost the same ($330) but gives you 30 square feet of interior space. The trade off is it's a bit more difficult to set up in less than perfect conditions, and you have to live with a a quasi-single wall setup.