In reply to teddy:
> Keep it simple, one grade pads or no pads. If u choose to make it harder and leave the pad at home that's your choice. There are not separate grades for wearing sticky boots or trainers. The latter would make any ascent way harder but nobody says regrade for an ascent in trainers!
Of course, multiple grades for pads - of whatever variety - or no pads, sticky or not, tweed or not tweed, will be unworkable. But my own feeling is that there is a tendency to equivocate the subsequent "easier" ascent to the original, "harder" ascent, to hold onto the grade. There seems to be a resistance to downgrade routes after new beta has been developed with new technology.
People want to separate themselves out into groups - the who haves (climbed x, y or z) from those who haven'ts, and I think there is a sense of injustice that arises when a supposedly significant ascent is claimed with new "tactics" without due deference to the difficulty of the ascent without. How would you feel claiming an ascent of Hubble with a knee pad?
Sport in general is full of examples of where new technology has been ruled out in order to make the competitiveness of the sport viable. We want to feel we're all playing the same game. For me, using a knee bar is good tactics; using a knee pad is good technology. I think most people probably want to feel that they are making the difference, rather than the technology, but something as simple as waiting for good conditions is an example of using good tactics to make the most of the available technology!
Personally, I think I prefer to reduce the amount of gear I'm reliant on, to make an ascent, and I can imagine that some of the reaction to the increasing use of knee pads is due to similar sentiment.
It's good to hear that, regarding this particular ascent, there is so much debate about the grade. However, I still wonder how much that discussion is weighted towards the original grade, more than the original tactics.