I still am pretty happy with my Sawyer filters and will continue to use them. My MSR Sweetwater needs a new cartridge and I doubt I will ever buy one for it.

I have used the Sawyers mostly in the dry west. I don't think mine ever got all that dry when on a tour or backpacking trip though, since it is usually in a plastic bag to keep the water segregated from the rest of my gear.

I was curious just how common the problem cyccommute reported was so I read all of the reviews of the squeeze and the mini on the REI site. There were a lot of reviews (somewhere between 150 and 200, I think) including a fair number of negative ones. The negative ones were mostly folks complaining about bursting the bags. A few were about trouble filling the bags, and a few were about the rubber washer leaking. I didn't see any about the problem he described so I have my doubts that it is all that common. The things folks were complaining about were all things I find I can deal with.