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Dunno which device you have, or whether it behaves like my Vista HCx, but what I have found is that I need to power cycle the device to get it recognized.

You are talking about one of my more annoying gripes of Mapsource.
May I suggest you add your concern to this thread:

https://forums.garmin.com//showthread.php?t=8547

Thanks for the OSM tip!  That did it!!!   

Interestingly, Mapsource ends up inserting weird routes and loopbacks, but the eTrex itself picks a usable, mostly direct route.  Thanks!

So now, is there a third-party tool which is more "complete" than Mapsource?  Meaning I can manage EVERYTHING in the Garmin like POIs, Waypoints, routes?
and by Manage, I mean move items between POI and Waypoint, delete POIs, routes, tracks, synchronize without causing dupes, etc etc?

You need routing maps such as the OSM maps http://garmin.na1400.info/ are the best free ones you can get

OSM?  Cool.... I just poked around on that site... Looks promising. Thanks!

Thanks for the reply....

So, what are the key words I need to look for in hunting down maps that route usefully?  I guess thats what the Garmin "city streets" maps, which cost about half of what I paid for the unit, are for?  Google maps/earth do this really well, for free.

Here's a crazy example:  a geocache is several blocks south of my house, at the end of my street.  Via "offroad" it has me dead-reckoning 0.2 miles (basically down my street) to it - easy enough.  Using road navigation though, it wants me to dead-reckon 2 miles south to the turnpike, immediately exit said turnpike and dead reckon north about 1.8 miles.  Not terribly useful.

I know about "POI_Loader".  How does one go about putting POIs into categories?   How can you convert a waypoint to a POI?  (e.g. over at "GPS Data Team [poidirectory.com]" the Love's travel centers  load as waypoints, whereas FlyingJ and Pilot load as POIs - cannot figure out why the difference.)

Are there third-party software or maps out there that bridge this gap?

I'm definitely a newb to Garmins, but not to tech (Systems Engineer) or GPS (amateur cartographer, user of Blackberry w/ GPS+GoogleEarth)....

So, I bought a Garmin eTrex Vista HCx so that I can record tracks and waypoints when I'm out in the sticks and out of cellphone coverage... and I suspect it'll work just fine for that, but I'm a little disappointed:

* Routing on Roads:  I downloaded y'all's Ibacus USA and Topo maps for Texas (great stuff), but when I ask it to navigate to a point 100 miles away, it calculates it very broadly (go east [about 8 miles from my home in the 'burbs] to major highway X), and it skips more direct routes (US highways) in favor of Interstate (urban loops).  What's up with that?

* MapSource doesnt "synchronize": every time I pull in data collected from the eTrex, it duplicates data (waypoints in particular) already in my .gdb.  There's GOT to be a better solution out there.

* Mapsource cannot seem to route via roads.  Yes, I have 'Car/Motorcycle' listed, but when I create a route between waypoints 100 miles apart, it thinks I can fly directly; doesnt consider the roads I see on the map itself.  What am I missing?

* POI's vs Waypoints:  Some POIs load as waypoints (using POI loader).  Surely there's a good tool out there for creating POI categories, shuffling waypoints into them (or POIs on the Garmin) into the new categories and pushing them up to the Garmin.