In reply to MSchobitz:
Hi there!
I have the La Sportiva Spectre's (first generations), they are my first pair of AT boots (well first ski boots at all actually) but here is my take for what its worth.
-They skin and hike very, very well
-I did a ill judged day of back country skiing which ended up being 8 miles of dirt hiking in them and they were very comfortable, no blisters but pretty warm!
-I ended up soloing around 5.4 (YDS)/ VD in them, it was scary but doable!
-Plenty warm enough for me up to and over 4000m's
-I skied a fair few of resort days in them and I don't think they are what is holding back my skiing.
-They take a crampon well and feel pretty natural to climb in, I've spoken to people in Colorado who say they feel good climbing WI5 in them.. though this could be because they are beasts!
-there are on occasional problems with the tongues, one of mine cracked and one of my buckles broke, La Sportiva US were awesome and just sent me new parts straight away with out needing to send the boot to them so a massive thumbs up for product support.
-Some of the screws come loose on occasions but loctite will solve that and carrying a multitool is a good idea anyway.
-for extended expeditions its pretty sweet that all the screws and buckles are interchangeable, if you were to have a buckle break you cold just take one off the toe (they do the least work) and swap it out for the broken one.
-Apparently the shells are easy to mould (I've not had to do much to mine).
- They are very light and low profile in use, on fast alpine ascents I've felt comfortable running with crampons on in them, they feel that nimble!
-They have a great sole!.. they have great friction, good tread and seem to do well on most surfaces.. Mine are looking a little torn up from so much time climbing rock though! Not exactly what they are designed for to be fair.
Over all I have been very pleased with them, as an all round boot I've really enjoyed using them. I've skied on piste, in the park (badly, because I am terrible!), in powder, corn, bad snow, good snow, skinned many miles, hiked probably more than 20 miles of snow/dirt/rock, lots of crampon time and they have been great.
If I was buying a pair right now? Id take a really good look at the Arcteryx Procline boots mentioned above, though as it their first ski boot I imagine there will be some problem to be ironed out in this generation (I think in 4 or 5 years time they will be THE boot to ski and climb in), but if they work as promised they should be amazing for skiing and climbing.
The Scrapa F1 looks interesting too..
As mentioned in this thread Dane over on cold thistle is a good source of knowledge as is the site wildsnow.com for reviews on loads of boots.
Good luck, what ever you get is probably going to work well.. lets face it, unless you are going super hard its pretty rare for our gear to actually hold us back!
Gi