After swapping gear and weapons and packs and boots and optics for the last few years, I've come to the conclusion that there are 4 pieces of gear that you can't skimp on:
1. Boots
2. Binos
3. Weapon System
4. Pack
These are the ONLY 4 items that, if they fail, can realistically end your hunt prematurely. You can do without a spotting scope, or the latest pattern from Kuiu or First Lite, but a low quality pair of boots or pack is murderous and WILL send you home early.
That being said, buying quality and what works is very different from spending money just to spend it. Every piece of gear has a point of diminishing return, where more money spent no longer equates to any type of true performance increase. In the case of packs, by the time you hit the tier of Kuiu, Mystery Ranch, Blacks Creek, Exo, Stone Glacier, ETC., what you're paying for is the proper fitment. All of these packs will do absolutely EVERYTHING you'd ever need a pack to do, what matters is how it fits. Yes, there's things like country of origin to consider, but really you're splitting hairs on true performance when you hit these packs.
At the end of the day, what you need to buy is what fits best. I ran a Stone Glacier X-Curve frame a couple years ago, and as nice as it was, I never could get it to fit me just right. It always rode funny and pinched and pulled. It never fit me, and no matter what I did to it, I couldn't get it to fit right. So, even though it was $650 all in, that didn't matter because it didn't work for me. I'm sub $400 into my Mystery Ranch Metcalf, and for me, it's a superior pack. Not because it's higher quality, but because it fits me better. My buddy runs an Exo K4800, and it's a GREAT pack! He loves it. Before he bought it, he tried my Metcalf and it didn't fit him very well no matter what he did, so he bought the Exo. I tried his Exo and it fit me ok, but not as good as the Metcalf does. Does that mean that I think the Exo is a piece of crap? NO!!! But it doesn't work for me!
My advice is to make friends with guys who have these packs, or at least frequent your local gun shops enough that you'll meet some acquaintances who will at least let you try them on. That way, you don't take a few hundred dollar bath potentially. I know it's a long, convoluted answer to the OP's question, but having experienced all of this I'm just trying to appropriately illustrate it.
