As far as my previous GPS experiences are concerned, I'd say that they go back pretty far...I'd always been intrigued by that technology especially since I used to sail quite a bit. Unfortunately when the first one (yes 1) channel GPS devices came out in the early 90s, they used to cost more than $1000...I rented a 45ft sailing boat in April 91 and it had a GPS, wow ! Unfortunately it wasn't set up properly and it didn't help me figure out where we were during a nasty storm off of the coast of Corsica...Then in 1992/93 I used a GPS virtually every day during my national service in the French Navy. It was funny because it had just been installed on this ASM Frigate and the guys were pretty suspicious of the device! I remember that the Captain insisted on using other "sanity" checks like the Loran, a legacy satellite machine whose name escapes me, that fit in a cupboard and that used to spit out a position once a day and the good old sextant. That was actually pretty good fun. God thing we had the GPS though. Then I nearly bought the Sony Pixie GPS in 94. That was it for a while until I got a Magellan 315 in 99 and then the Magellan 330 in 2000. I'd been using the latter connected to my iPaq 3670 through the serial port. A cumbersome setup, until I acquired the ubiquitous Bluetooth EMTAC GPS receiver.

 As for mapping/routing software, I've used and tried a few...if memory serves:
PC Based:
- Delorme: Topo, Street Atlas, AAA Map'n'Go
- Microsoft: Street & Trips, Autoroute, Mappoint
- Ozi Explorer
- Route 66

Palm:
- Quo Vadis
- RoutePlanner

Pocket PC:
- Destinator
- Pharos
- OziCE
- Teletype
- TomTom: CityMaps, Navigator and Routeplanner