Plateless staple-up may not be up to the challenge of frigid winter climates.
The winter of 2004 was one of the coldest on record in much of the Midwest and Northeastern United States. I can remember feeling upbeat during one January arctic intrusion in upstate New York when the high temperature for the day made it above 0 degrees F. The day before it never made it above minus 4 degrees F with lows in the range of minus 30 degrees F, and that's without wind chill. Yeah, I know you guys up in Fairbanks had it worse, but these temperatures really sting in locations where ASHRAE outdoor design temperatures range from 5 degrees F to maybe minus 5 degrees F.
I don't think it's possible to be in the heating business and not lay awake on bitterly cold nights thinking of what the following morning will bring. For many heating contractors this past winter, those mornings brought nonstop service calls, a small percentage of which were actually profitable (fixing someone else's mistakes). For too many, these mornings brought an onslaught of expensive callbacks associated with inadequate heat delivery. Without a doubt, the winter of 2004 shook out lots of marginally performing heating systems that might have limped along through more typical winter weather.