Travel Bugs: Surrogate vacationers?

[ar_kayaker]

When I first started geocaching I bought a pack of four TB tags and released them more or less right away, then picked up a set of eight and released them over a period of time, but now I really wonder what was the point?

I want to go visit all those caches the bugs make it to, it doesn't do much for me for the TB's to go there. Every once in a blue moon somebody actually moves one of my TB's to a cache that fits it's goal and/or I get the vicarious experience of hearing what a good cache it got to visit (if the cacher that dropped it off bothered to write a good log.) Other than that they aren't particularly interesting to me once I let them go. Especially since they tend to disappear for months on end, sometimes permenantly. At least if a cache gets muggled it's easy to determine that it is in fact missing and replace it, with a TB...who knows?

Does anyone else have a different take on travelers? Reasons you release them or don't?

AK