Main Wall

A number of the steel 'biners have gone missing from the anchors. Some routes have one left, some routes have none. Maybe they were stolen by the same idiots who left their cigarette butts all over the base of the main wall?

They were steel? Last I recall there were some inexpensive-brand aluminum D's atop some of those routes. Maybe there's a high turnover rate; this topic has come up before.

This past summer I was climbing with an out-of-towner who was bubbling over about the pair of "bootied" biners that he and an associate had scored from the anchors of one of the Overlook routes. When I informed him that those biners were probably meant to be fixed, he looked kind of crestfallen.
Anyway, the disappearance of anchor biners will probably continue, partly because, like in this case, many folks will think they're scoring booty.

Here's my 2 cents (not that I'm involved in maintaining any of these anchors). Maybe if they are meant to stay up there, those anchor biners will either have to:
A. clearly signal that the 'biner is to remain associated with the chain by connecting the two with a keeper device of some sort (maybe wired to the chain with a short length of small-gauge nonreactive [copper?] wire?) (or, maybe better, a stainless split-ring, like those on your keychain?).
B. not use standard climbing carabiners, but instead maybe be snap-links or other clearly non-standard equipment that won't be easily added to someones rack and therefore inherently won't be tempting to swipe.

I was the one that originally placed the "fixed" biners on the chains at Gallows last year. I used a mixture of steel hardware store clips and aluminum carabiners, just using what I had around my gear room. Certainly steel biners are best but more expensive. Aluminum biners wear much faster (especially if people are routinely TRing through them rather than using their own draws to TRing until the last person lowers) so perhaps those aluminum biners wore out to the point of being scary and someone removed them on account of safety. I'm cool with that.
What amazes me are climbers like the one Chris was climbing with who are either too thick-skulled or too cheap to realize that biners on chains aren't just there because someone forgot them or someone has loads of money and leaves biners each time they lower and that it's OK to remove them.
I plan to purchase some steel biners and fix them to the chains with bailing wire at Gallows Edge. Certainly the bailing wire is not a real deterrent to those that are determined to score "booty" biners but at least the wire will signal to those that are clueless that the biners are meant to be there for the safety and convenience of everyone that climbs the route.
Actually, I was recently given a box of new hardware for anchor replacement as a part of the Climbing Magazine's Anchor Replacement Initiative (ARI) and perhaps Gallows is a good candidate for these. What do you think?