Eight pounds is quite a weight saving, especially since Pipers have very
positive nose wheel steering, so the toe brakes provide only redundancy. My
personal prejudice favors the greatest theoretical redundancy, meaning nose
wheel steering plus toe brakes

Yes, but then you also might argue that toe brakes (requiring two
cylinders, two pressurized lines, etc) have twice as many failure
points for the same mission-critical system (Braking)... so while you
get redundant steering, you get it at the cost of more mission
critical parts to fail

I'm stirring the pot of course, I would gladly step up to a newer
aircraft with toe brakes if given the opportunity, I'm just saying I
don't miss them on my current bird

For me the 2k labor + 8lbs was the primary deciding factor (funny how
that works)

BTW, the Gruman Cheetah and Tiger models, and many of the newer training
aircraft, have castoring nosewheels--so steering is accomplished by
differential braking until the rudder becomes effective.

I've flown a friends cheetah... Going from my direct-drive, simple
rudder pedal steering too a toe-brake-only system was... interesting,
to say the least.

My biggest issue in that plane however was it was simply too small for
me... I could not get into a position where I could manipulate the
pedals comfortably... (same with most toe-brake equipped planes (I'm
6'4, 240), but the grumman was particularly bad)

Shame, because otherwise I love the grummans... great view and fun to
fly.

That should cause them to have faster right side brake wear than Cessna trainers, which
have spring steering which allows the nose wheel to lock straight ahead in flight.

I think the issue Any training airplane has is simply... trainees...
even aircraft Pipers and Cessnas... it takes a few flights to get in
the hang of keeping your foot off the brakes and on the rudder at
takeoff... for some (like me) its rather uncomfortable even

and which can become a little problematic; especially if the nose strut and
the springs are not maintained.

I read somewhere that Cessna Milked that patent for all it was worth
and despite the MX issues, I think its a smarter system... I still
live in fear (especially when fighting particularly gusty x-winds) of
touching down sooner than I anticipate with a nice heavily cocked
front nose wheel and hearing the control line go *SNAP*...

Peter