"Why carry a Trangia backpacking?  They weigh a ton."

It depends. If you want a bomb proof spirit stove that will light and stay alight in just about any weather you'd carry a Trangia, if you are basing yourself in one place, tent or bothy,  day hiking/climbing from there and cooking for more than one at night and in the mornings you'd take in a Trangia. If there are two or three of you, you'd split the kit up between you and each carry some. Ultralight is not for all occasions.

they are heavier and a little bulkier than other options...but in their defence, the only time I saw someone spill their dinner out of one was after an inadvertant stumble and a kick that would've done Johnny Wilkinson proud!

you can *almost* leave them to their own devices and they are a pretty neat package, including windshield. 

Steve

I have a big a little and a mini trangia + a gas converter - from memory it doesny fit in the mini wind shield / supprot.

Matt C wrote (see)

The mini trangia works well if you add a fully enclosing foil windshield of the same sort as goes with most multifuel stoves.

Don't know how old my oldest Trangia is, but it's old.  I bought the gas burner when they first appeared, so that's old too. It works well and it's been totally reliable.  Not used the Trangia without gas for years.  No soot-covered pans and no sleeping with your meths to keep it warm in freezing conditions.

Meths is for winos and my ex-missus.

Mine's old too, 18 years old, but still in nearly new condition through lack of use. We (me and my bro.) had a great laugh out of it when it was new. We foolishly set it up on a slatted seat on Llanddwyn island, Anglesey. It was a very windy winter's day and we couldn't find any other shelter. Once lit, it quickly went completely out of control, with a 2 foot flame leaping out of the stove, a bit like an oxy/acetylene torch. This was at night and it was a very impressive sight. The wind was getting underneath the base through the slats and giving the flame more oxygen than planned. There was no question of getting anywhere near it to put it out, we just had to wait till the fuel was spent, which wasn't long. Fortunately, it didn't damage the seat or shelter. No way would I use a meths burning Trangia inside a tent porch after seeing that.

Why were we on Llanddwyn island at night in winter?  Well, just for the curious, we'd gone to Snowdonia in February 1990 to do our first wild camp with a load of new gear. How stupid is that? 1st wild camp, Snowdonia, Winter, new gear! We obviously thought we were tough. We parked in Abergwyngregyn and headed into the hills, only to be beaten back by the Welsh winter. Not snow and ice, but driving horizontal rain and storm force winds. My brother was actually blown off his feet. Back at the car, plan B sprung into action. We drove to Nant Peris and spent the night trying to sleep in the car park, the car rocking in the wind. That's why we chose the slatted seat on the island, we'd done the same in the car park at Nant Peris and it worked great.

Next day, we hatched a cunning plan to try and sleep in the pilot's cottages at the end of  Llandwyn island (don't ask). We were milling around pretending to explore the island at around dusk, but there was a ranger hanging about and I think he knew what we were up to. Dejected, we trekked back towards the car, having the Trangia incident on the way and nearly getting stuck on the island due to big surging waves threatening to cut it off. Good job we had gaiters on because we had to do a runner in between wave surges to get back to the beach. We drove home that night having had enough of wild camping, I haven't laughed so much since.

Apologies to the Op because all that had nothing at all to do with Trangia gas conversions.