Did anyone in this thread say that all they ever used was their previous experiences in order to determine a go/no go? That would be a pretty silly game plan, you know, what with maintenance logs and difficulties, current and predicted weather and accuracy of weather reporting data, advice from other flight crew, company and federal regulations regarding flight AND maintenance, duty time restrictions, passenger loads, and a whole bunch of other stuff that one gets to deal with. You know, aviation stuff.

I can't even quote your statement because it makes no sense to me.

This thread, the one you and I and other pilots of varying degrees of awesomeness, are reading and typing really clever (mostly) replies into, is about a Captain who made a decision based on weather and an autopilot problem. What have you got to specifically address that, aviatorhi? Do you know the specifics on the MEL and how long the autopilot had been deferred? How long was the company allowed to defer it? Is it "cool" that so many people think it's apparently no big deal that the company replaced the Captain in question, and gave him a 14 day suspension for exercising his authority?

You know, that kind of stuff aviatorhi.