First to the "given reason": Exactly, I've just come back from an avalanche search exercise and destroyed my probe. An almost annual occurrence, as the same thing happened to me at the beginning of last season. Reason enough to gather knowledge before the next purchase, sound out the market and summarize important points as Gear oft he Week.
First of all, a few basic things about avalanche probes. Everyone who ventures into open terrain carries an avalanche transceiver, a shovel and a probe as avalanche safety equipment. The probe is used for fine searches. It is used to locate the buried person, after which the shoveling begins.
Tests have shown that it takes about twice as long to find the buried person without a probe. If we assume that we only have around 15 minutes before the chances of survival drop dramatically, the "stick" takes on a completely different meaning.