I'm a Bay Area Windsurfer/Kiter and surfer in Santa Cruz. I use a 4/3 Heat in the summer and a Patagonia R3 the rest of the year, both back zip although I'd like to try to front zip. My favorite wetsuit from the 80's were Victory front zips, but I keep hearing the Patagonia front zip take a bit of Houdini to get in and out of. I'm on generation 2 of the R3, gen 1 was great back in the 3rd year the seam on the right arm started to come apart. I took it to the Patagonia store where I ordered it and asked to get it repaired. When I went back to pick it up they gave me a new R3, hard not to like that! Fletcher had a big sale on them last month, R3's for around 380.00 I think. Not sure if his sale is still on.