The new stuff sounds great, but how durable is it?
Every time i've come across a new and improved breathable waterproofing technology recently, it comes with the significant downside that the fabric is a lot less durable. When it's raining, i wear my anorak. But when it's not raining, it's rolled up in a plastic bag and bungeed to my bike bag, or shoved into my satchel, or stuffed into a corner of my carry-on luggage. It probably does >10 hours carried for every hour worn! If a fabric can't stand up to that, sadly it doesn't matter how well it performs when i'm wearing it.
On my vintage jacket, the gore Tex membrane itself is less than 5 mils thick. There are freaky chemical burns on the front of it, ate through the tough external facing material, but didn't react to the Teflon. So I can see directly how the laminate was constructed.
I never got around to patching that... but yes there's tough stuff.
The Marmot gear I tried, the "Durable Water Repellent" (DWR) is claimed to be more durable than previous Gore Tex products. That's important because when the surface DWR is dirty with oils or abraded, it will wet out, saturate, and while the PTFE membrane won't leak liquid water, now it's not passing vapor either: you generally end up damp or worse. Condensation etc.
Which is why Gore Tex certification covered the whole process, the final product design.
I don't yet have decades of experience with current products. But honestly comparing them, the newer ones seem to be far superior build quality. That's hard for me to quantify.
The product reviews for the North Face FutureLight gear have noted how they hold up, scrambling over rocks and during Alpine style ascent.
Every time i've come across a new and improved breathable waterproofing technology recently, it comes with the significant downside that the fabric is a lot less durable. When it's raining, i wear my anorak. But when it's not raining, it's rolled up in a plastic bag and bungeed to my bike bag, or shoved into my satchel, or stuffed into a corner of my carry-on luggage. It probably does >10 hours carried for every hour worn! If a fabric can't stand up to that, sadly it doesn't matter how well it performs when i'm wearing it.