Chris, I've got the Spot (Generation 2) and it's worked great for me. I bought it so Joanne could track me on the Epic Ride and she refused to learn how to use it. She didn't care where I was and figured that if I got hurt, someone would call her, plus, as it turned out, other people did follow my track on Spotwalla and would say, "Oh, I noticed that Phil is in Nova Scotia." And she'd say, "Oh, really?"
I don't know if Spotwalla works for the DeLorme products or not, but it's one of the best things about the Spot. I can use it to track all my rides and I can make those visible to other people or not, my choice.
There was discussion that made it sound like the Spot would eat batteries in just a couple of weeks, but I only had to replace them once on the Epic Ride. I put in a new set after Jim and I got back from our flight out to the western reaches of the Yukon River and they lasted till I got home.
There is other discussion about how quickly you'd get help with the Spot and some of the LD riders who travel into really distant places are carrying personal locator beacons, but those things are really expensive and the service for them is more expensive than Spot's.
Other discussion centers around whether to have the Spot on your body or on the bike. I can see some possible advantages to carrying it on me, but mine is on the bike.