Wet weather SSCX commuter

The hydaulic systems I've ridden (Formula and Shimano) have required no additional love after installation (other than pad replacement). Compared to my BB7's they where a very short walk in the park.

Cool. Can you pop round to mine and fix the stuck pad on my marta and the blown seal on my Shimano SLX? The later might be difficult because you can't actually buy spares. But that's OK, just buy a new caliper. Oh wait, the connection standards have changed. But that's OK, you can just buy a new connector. Oh wait, you can't actually buy the connectors separately. That's OK, we'll get a new hose. But hang on, for the price of a new caliper and hose you could buy a whole new leaver, hose, caliper, pads...

Hydraulics is exactly what a weekend warrior needs. A non-contaminated system, that has selfadjusting pads and more or less don't care about freezing temperatures.

The dirty secret of hydraulics is that they do get contaminated. That's why they require bleeding from time to time. Self adjusting pads is fine too - and in the Spyre we have that now in a cable pull brake. Freezing temperatures - not sure what you mean there. If you are referring to that cross race in the US where they were eating pads due to froozen mud acting like sandpaper this problem has been solved by doing away with the static pad (again, see the Spyre) and using non-drilled rotors. Hydraulics would have suffered the same fate anyway, except they would have eaten both pads.

If hydraulics where fiddly, why in the name of god would a mountainbiker (who has to maintain his bike even more) choose it almost exclusively?

Because MTBers love dicking around with over complicated stuff, and especially stuff that is corrosive to your skin ;)

More seriously, and as I hinted at above - because they stop you better, in a discipline where stopping can be really rather important. Unlike cross...