Being an American, I guess I follow the "bigger is always better" mantra, so I must have a V8 for my daily commute in the city just in case I ever get invited to a track day and, you know, need that power. Neurologists say this is the cognitive area of the brain finding a logical rationalization/justification for what the limbic (emotional) area of the brain is making us want. But in the military (where efficiency of systems is an even bigger mantra!) my limbic system trained me to get an even bigger emotional dopamine hit from impressing my military/engineer friends with an efficient system.
Technically I guess the applicable formula is [TX power] / [antenna] x [budget]. Personally, I'm happy with whatever setup makes you happy. Just as long as you're getting out and enjoying it. Whether you want to use gold-plated coax to connect a 5w oscillator to a yagi antenna and hit satellites, or put a 50w blower on an omni, I say enjoy! But if you go with the 50w, you def should put one of these on your rig :
