For me in the hydration vest world I've tried a few brands like Nathan, Ultimate Direction and Salomon and for a variety of reasons I kept coming back to Salomon. I still have my first true hydration vest, a Salomon Advanced Skin 10 + 3, it's falling a part with split seams and holes in the mesh body but it is still quite durable. So far I'd have to say it's the best vest I've owned.  In the years since I've tried an Ultimate Direction vest, I don't remember what type, but the fabric was light weight and durable. It was full of these bungee straps to secure things inside and outside of the vest. After a couple of long runs, runs over 20 miles, I noticed the vest was starting to fall a part. The internal bungee system was starting to break. The tie in or hook for my bladder never worked the bladder was always coming off and sinking down to the bottom of the vest and getting pinched such that the water wouldn't flow. There wasn't enough cargo space for a self supported run of over 20 to 25 miles, less than that if the weather wasn't cooperating. The sternum straps also, for me, didn't do a good job of helping the vest to fit well over all. The Nathan vest I tried while didn't have the breakage issues of the Ultimate Direction it did have a capacity issue, bottle easy of operation troubles. Neither vest made it easy to find a place for poles to be hooked into, mind you they weren't designed for poles, but in all of my Salomon vests I've always been able to figure some way to hook them to the vest.

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So I've gone back to Salomon, not without some regrets but overall they work well for me. As I mentioned they were my first vest and while it had too much capacity for the distances I was doing back then it was flexible enough that it didn't matter, I didn't feel the extra in the form of weight or movement. My 2 Advanced Skin vests both have a semi waterproof compartment that at the very least keeps the sweat from me seeping into that compartment. In all three of my Salomon vests I've been able to figure out ways to attach my poles even though they weren't designed to be hooked up the way I did it. Both my 10+3 and 12 liter vests have proven to be extremely durable with enough capacity for whatever adventure I'm planning. Outside of the 10+3 fraying due to 7 years and who knows how many miles of use both vests are holding up very well.  The one hiccup with this brand was in a 5 liter vest. I never could figure out a good way to attach my poles that wouldn't end up tearing the vest. On a couple of runs instead of using the bladder I took 3 1-liter bottles. I placed the 3rd bottle in the back pouch that you can get to from either side, doing that ended up tearing a hole in that area. The loops for holding the front bottles in place both broke and I ended up repairing those. So this vest has become my training vest and used in race distance of 50 miles and down.  In these settings the vest performs excellent in that I can carry everything I need between drop bags.  So I've become a Salomon vest guy.