I've got a Simmonds hood on my 4/4 and it does its main job of being waterproof and not leaking very well, and it is very quick indeed to erect. I was a bit concerned about lack of internal headroom and visibility on his standard hoods, so Steve swopped the rear two hoops around on mine and fitter a full width rear window with a zip-out facility. This gives much better access to the rear shelf when you're inside and much better rearward visibility, but at the cost of looks, it looks a bit upright and old fashioned compared to an Easy-Up hood which I think look better - but on the other hand when you're sat inside it's absolutely fine and it's not like you actually use it much anyway.
The other key advantage of a Simmonds hood is that it folds away really neatly and doesn't intrude on rear load space. The other disadvantage is that the windscreen clips do tend to generate a bit more wind noise when it's up.
