Mmmmmmmmm, Tivo. The toy that changed my life
As for Poker Tracker, I'm in agreement with both of you. While I find the silly details interesting (see above), they don't affect how I play.... much. I won't say they don't at all though, because I am a bit mroe aware of some of my trouble hands now than I used to be.
When I fire up PT and GT+, I rarely even look at the numbers.... but I do on occasion. Maybe every 50 hands, I'll take a look around the table and check out the VPIPs mostly. I multi-table all the time, and PT helps me keep track of who has come and gone. I realize 50 hands isn't a significant sample size, but when one guy has a 78% VPIP and another has a 12% VPIP, that's telling you something right there. Yes, you could probably be aware of this without PT, but it's a lot easier using it when you are multi-tabling. I also find that while I can pick uut the maniacs at a given table easily, sometimes the tight players fly under my radar. It's like I forget about them because they aren't in many pots... PT helps me with that too.
I only use it at Party/Empire. And I never use it in tourneys. This ends up being just a fraction of the hands I play.... but like I've said, I still highly recommend it. ESPECIALLY for newer players that are still at the steep part of their learning curve. The only reason I would recommend PT for a guy like Kurn is because I'd like to see his numbers and compare them to my own to see if that helped identify any leaks...