> That said, I prefer just raking up leaves manually. It makes no noise, it's quiet, and it's good exercise.

I think a lot of folks in these discussions think only of lawns. That's a pretty small portion of where leaf blowers get used, in my experience. The lawn mower takes care of most of the leaves on the lawn, the blower gets used around bushes and other places a rake won't work at all.

I agree completely! My favorite weed killer is my own two hands and a weeder. Having said that, I live in Arizona and the dominant landscape design here is trees and bushes planted with rocks for the ground cover. A leaf rake is real good at picking up both the leaves and the rocks. I wish there was a leaf rake that didn't pick up the rocks. I have grudgingly bought an electric leaf blower because of the rocks :-(