Hi Andrew
With regard to your point 3, you might be interested in this week's new release, allegedly a world first: a personal navigation device (PND) which can read both raster and vector data:
http://www.globalpositioningsy…r-sat-nav-for-a-walk.html
I haven't seen one yet but am going to the OS Outdoor Show at NEC Birmingham next weekend to do just that, being reluctant to spend £350 without some thorough research!
Till now, I have used both vector and raster mapping with success on an HP Ipaq 5550 with a Holux GPS Slim 236 in Bluetooth mode. (AA Navigator with AA speedcare uses vector mapping. Pathaway and Memory-Map mobile use raster data. I have to do a soft reset before I can change which programme is using the COM8 virtual port for the GPS. I do not use Pathaway in UK as the Memory Map Mobile (MMM) programme is much easier to use, esp. for loading data. I have had one problem in that respect: although I am using a 4GB SD card, I cannot get MMM to read the 2.97 GB of data in the MM UK 50K file. I therefore use the older version of MMM with the smaller regional files of MM OS2004. Region 6,Central England South is 347MB, more than I believe Pathaway could load in one go.)
I do recommend the upgrade to TTQV 4 (PU). On a laptop, you can use raster mapping with the NAVTEQ speech navigation as an overlay. (Make sure you order the NAVI version of NAVTEQ as its the only one with the speech navigation). There's a 30 day free trial of TTQV 4 to download from the website. Look at the possibilities of ECWP and the Google Earth interface.....
Regards
Bill