I agree with Allen's assessment. While synthetics my technically dry out faster than wool, I'm still never as warm while it's happening. For me, wool has a much wider comfort range too. And there's NO contest between merino and synthetics with the stick control. Wool will get the wet dog smell (I've kind of grown to accept it as a "outdoor smell" and don't mind it), but synthetics will quickly build and hold plain old human odor. Sometimes it's even hard to completely wash out.
Yes, sythetics will wear longer than wool. But to me, that's like celebrating a longer visit from your Mother In Law. I've got synthetics I finally parked in a drawer, rather than trying to wear them out.
