salmoneous wrote:
[snip]
I can see where these might be useful with a nice fiberglass sea kayak
or if it's necessary to carry the boat on its side. But do the
attachments add anything with an inexpensive plastic kayak? I fail to
see how strapping the kayak to bars clamped on the crossbars would be
any more stable than strapping them to the crossbars themselves.

Yeah, the saddled are primarily useful for protecting the relatively
fragile hull of fiberglass boats, like some sea/touring/racing kayaks.
For anything else, they are just candy.

Stackers are very useful to maintain the verticalness of one or more
kayaks stacked up on edge vertically, such as running shuttle, or any
other such application where you'd like to carry several boats.

Most all the other toys are just that: toys. J-bars, etc. They may be
more conveient for some weaker/disabled people, but I fear most who use
them just like then as cool toys, or get them to impress someone, the
stupidest reason to do anything!

--
John Kuthe,
1st rule of Govt: protect people from Govt
2nd rule of Govt: protect people from each other
BUT: It must *never* become the job of Govt to protect people from
themselves!