I've been riding an 05 Ozone frenzy 12m foil kite for about a year and have loved it. The ease of setting up and taking it down by myself is great, and the kite does a good job pulling hard. I also really like the safety system on it, where with the pull of a red knob, the kite stalls and falls to the ground. And also a secondary safety system where I can release the chicken loop completely and let the kite fly away.

A lot of my friends have been switching over to LEI's and I wanted to know if you guys would recommend this. I mainly use the kite on snow, and during the summer months on land with an ATB or Landboard.

How are the safety systems and self launch/land capabilities on an LEI? The only things that I don't like about my current foil are: gusty conditions cause the kite to stall at times. Tip tuck, and the kite not holding a rigid shape, and finally the slow response time of the kite (I've seen LEI and Peter Lynn users kiteloop while in the middle of a jump, and just the overall quick responsiveness of an LEI looks awesome). I don't want to go away from self launching/landing because I think it's quite a pain to have to use another person.

in my current conditions, using snow to pile onto the kite is hardly an option, although i could use a weight of some sort

Just in regard to turning speed - check out some of Ozone's latest videos of the 2011 models - I think you'll see they've increased the turning speed considerably. My 2009 Access XC was a bit of a slug to turn but the 2010/11 XT's are very zippy by comparison. I believe the same is true of the Frenzys.

The advantage and disadvantage of an LEI is it's rigid structure ... safety systems all work fine and self land/launch is just as easy (almost) as arcs and foils.
Gusty conditions ... you can still mess up an LEI - I had my 16m Crossbow invert on me :ticking: and they fall out of the air much sooner in lulls and then are impossible to relaunch.

I haven't had the opportunity to fly much from Oz' but I have to think that just like all other brands they have improved greatly from 05 ?

Even in 05 Chast was tossing kiteloops for Oz' ! Maybe you need to demo a Manta ?

I have to say, simple setup is worth a LOT. One thing I am missing with the arcs over my old Flysurfers.

great input guys. I'm going to demo a 13m 08 Best (yaroo?) not sure of the brand but it's a Best something. Anyways I'll see how she flys and if I'm able to get it out of the bag and up quick.

I fly with the UND snowkite club, and we get disgusting negative temps all the way down to -40 including wind chill. Can't be puttering around setting up and taking down in that. Maybe I'll wait til summer.

I also wanna try kiteboarding on water, and know that a foil is a no no because If I happen to crash the kite I'd be pretty much SOL

A Flysurfer or PL Arc you won't be SOL on the water.

Ew Best ... I wouldn't touch them with a 10-foot barge pole, especially anything that isn't new or at least post 2009.

Open-cell foil is a no-no for water unless you're totally elite ... closed cell foils are great because they're small, light, pull like a young school boy and easy to repair. Disadvantage is you gotta take a bit more care to not tangle them and require a little skill to untangle - but only a little.
The advantage though of LEI is that everyone has them and there's zero confusion on the beach. Modern ones are zero hassle when you mess up - my Crossbows, you just let go the bar and they're depowered.