Are tricams popular now?

What happened to the tricam market? A year ago people basically gave them away. Now people are asking $15-20 for the small sizes and seem to be getting it. What gives? Are tricams finally catching on as the awesome pro that they are? Are you all preparing for Tricam-uary? What’s up?

People keep talking up the hype on mountain proj so people think they're worth something.

Edit: everything bellow just proved my point

Pink tricam was the original black totem.

popular:no

Useful: yes

why they are not popular: beats the heck outta me.

Matt Nwrote:

Pink tricam was the original black totem.

Truth 

Even though how not 2 did breaktests with tcu's and tricams in horizontals, and tcu's were better, I'd still trust a tricam more. It's that special part of my lizard brain that loves a good nut.

Cleaning them can be a total pain in the ass, so I get why some people hate them. 

Cornelius Yukon wrote:

Although Hownot2 tested TCUs in horizontal cracks, all the pulls were straight out. The tests more accurately represented a roof placement based on the direction of pull.

When they tested the tricams, they used a redirect to better simulate tricam-specific placements. They got way-above-whipper results, except for a marginal placement in a flaring horizontal pull -which pulled out at 3.8 kn. 

They do seem expensive. I've been looking for a second pink for awhile now, but don't want to pay 85% of new price.

Moosejaw's got them on sale right now. Under $20 for the pink.  If you prefer, I'll sell you a very lightly used pink for 18 (shipped).

Patrick Lwrote:

Cleaning them can be a total pain in the ass, so I get why some people hate them. 

I find them most useful in building anchors on alpine routes because they can be a PITA to clean and (I'm sure it's mostly me) they are not the easiest piece to place to I don't find myself reaching for them when I'm climbing at my limits. But if you have any sort of stance they are great pieces.