Interesting discussion. I've been wondering about this myself and appreciate everyone's comments.

At the moment I am leaning toward a traditional stand alone cyclometer, supplemented by a hiking type GPS. As I'm a hiker too, that would kill two birds with one stone.

I have played a bit with backcountry navigator on my smartphone, and I've concluded it doesn't make a very good GPS. Reliability is spotty and the battery life when running apps like that isn't practical - unless I got a dynohub for charging. I'd rather simply keep the phone off most of the time, like I do when hiking. I did cut my teeth back in the days of paper maps and a few dimes for a phone booth if needed after all.