Good read, Bill. Thanks for the link; however, I still think it's a matter of personal preference. I can't imagine keeping up with a bunch of 4 gb cards at home or on a trip . . . I have trouble enough keeping up with lens caps. I know myself too well.
IF I were going on a three-week trek (and with a house full of dogs and a barn full of horses, it's not going to happen soon), I would take a couple of extra cards (16 and 8) as spares, and I would take a small stripped down laptop with photo-processing software and a small backup drive and still follow the same procedure. . . handle the cards as little as possible.
Actually, my most favorite way to shoot is tethered . . . bypass the card altogether, download into lightroom and backup to an external drive at the moment of capture. Of course it's a little impractical if you're on a wilderness trek or have to do a lot of walking (unless you can find a serf to carry all your stuff and set everything up for you, kind of like medieval knights had to have a bunch of squires to help them get "dressed" and in the saddle . . . sigh . . . no wonder the pro"s like Joe McNally travel with an entourage of assistants)