Gary, I've never had the opportunity to be on a truck ordering committee however have worked with trucks that were spec'ed by others and wondered the excact same thing. From asking guys that were on the committees the most frequent answer I've heard was that alot of it is stock off the line and you actually have to specify to remove it from the basic manufacturers specs and they just didnt think of it. The other thing is we dont have the opportunity to purchase new trucks very often, maybe even once or twice in a career so most people arent profficient in the process.

-Hey Gary, I could not agree more with you. I would suggest that you take a look at the other discussion in this group Aerial and Parapet Access.
-The one thing I try to impart to firefighters assigned to aerials is that unlike our Tower Ladder Brothers, the aerial is not a work platform or tool staging area. Rather it is intended as an access device to rapidly deploy and/or recover firefighters and to rescue victims.
-Hope you take a look at my post on the other discussion.

We have quartz lights at the tip of our main, but I really appreciate them when we're stepping off of the main on to a dark roof. We do not have any of the other stuff that I have seen on other sticks(discharges, electrical boxes, etc...)

We also have a pick head, a 6 ft hook and a 16 ft roof ladder mounted about 3 ft down from the last rung. They have never been in the way when we use the main to pop a window or when we need to get on a roof.

I have never used the lights to light up an MVA scene, but thanks to Chad Berg we're going to try it the very next chance we get. Thanks