In reply to tehmarks:
Indeed
Thank you everyone for your replies.
I'm just trying to offer a bit of protection against, for example, an awkward high step where you gently graze your other leg with a sharp crampon point in passing and it hilariously 'unzips' your goretex. No doubt my piss footwork won't help, but accidents happen.
Most commercially available winter hardshells seem to come with crampon patches these days, but having had to sell my last pair because I'm too damn fat I'm considering trying to replicate the effect on a budget.
I take the points about gaiters keeping everything nice and tidy, but these days I'd have gaiters on already with hardshells in the bag and it seems a huge faff to remove crampons to get to your gaiters, put waterproofs on and then reapply everything on top. Unless that's what everyone else is doing and I'm just a nugget.
Post edited at 10:55