Thanks for the support .... with this professional group, it's always an accomplishment when one post makes the 'conventional wisdom' do a 180!
Hotline, it's not that I 'lean' one way or the other. Rather, it's the result of an article (of which I was generally quite critical) that brought to my attention the problems GFCI's have with corrosion ... especially when located near pool equipment.
That article described many GFCI's that failed in the 'power on' mode due to corrosion of the innards. What the article failed to stress (among other things) is that all the failed units pre-dated the latest, more robust versions.
Along the lines of that article, though, I might consider the use of "WR,' 'corrosion rated,' or remote located (in the panel) GFCI protection.
An awful lot depends on the specifics of both the job and the customer. These design choices are why we get the big bucks
