Lt.kenson wrote:
I I KNOW the inflatables work. I've discovered that a few times by accident.

I think you are talking about auto-inflate on immersion feature, which I don't want. Sometimes staying uninflated when wet gives the needed agility to, say, reboard a kayak.
I got a super slim belt type 5 pfd for special purposes. Mine is like the size of 2 decks of playing cards and sold for half price. From youtube I got the false impression that when manually activated it forms into a type 2ish headrest. But then my user guide revealed it simply inflates into a cube attached to the belt. I guess to reboard a kayak I might briefly twirl the belt 180 degrees if that doesn't drown me. These are my concerns about it not working, but I have a need for such minimalism in certain rare excursions.
BTW the US coast guard insists the belt type always be worn to be legal, which makes sense. But I found a state by state guide of local pfd rules that applied that rule to any type of pfd in most any state I randomly chose, which is very excessive.