I'm sure if you ask 15 creek boaters, you will get 15 sets of answers as to what is the best creek boat design. I have one and have paddled it quite a bit and love it for creeking, but would probably rate it a little lower for big water pushy river running compared to say a Gus or Diesel. From the pics I've seen of the new Necky boat and the El Jefe, they both appear be pulling a little bit of the bow design into their new boats. IMO the Huka's strenghts are on tight technical creeks with a lot of vertical and its ability for the bow to resurface quickly. Its weakness is that in pushy big water it takes more work to track and keep on line. It also does not pierce through a hole (compared to something like a gus) and hit the dark water. As for durability, I can only say I have hammered the cr*p out of mine and had no problems (mine fell off the truck twice and is still going strong). It was also interesting to read Bliss-Sticks reply about broken Huka's on the earlier post, kind of clears up what is posted here and how many have actually came in on warinty broken. I'll be super interested to paddle a Jefe because it appears to combine a lot of what I like about the Gus and the Huka into one boat, but its hard to tell just from pics without paddling it.