Rudders

is almost guaran-damn-teed to have that rudder fail when you need it most.

I've had three yaks with rudders without a problem. Are they prone to failure?

I think Scott was making the point that being moving parts the potential for failure exists.  And it doesn't take many minor issues to add up to a bad situation on the water.

My limited experience with rudders comes from working on rental touring boats. Not cheapies, but very nice Northwest designs boats. Over the course of a summer I would say I would replace about 10 or so cables. Most we would catch as part of cleaning them up after a trip, but inevitably some would fail in the field. I always liked seeing how folks dealt with that. Duct tape was the most common fix of course.

The cool part was that personal boat used cables 10" shorter than the rental boats so I had spare cables for free

Anyway, rudders totally have their place. Its a case of "to each their own taste". Although I don't personally use one on my current boat, my Cayman yak has one & I liked it when I paddled that boat. I did break a cable once though . So just be sure to recognize this & check the cable condition before you head out .

is almost guaran-damn-teed to have that rudder fail when you need it most.

I've had three yaks with rudders without a problem. Are they prone to failure?

I've had 2 yaks  with rudders and 8 years on them and no failures.  I have heard that the cables can go, but never actually seen one go. The rest of thing thing is so simple and over-engineered that i'd doubt they'd fail.