Yeah, exactly. I've had that happen to me too many times with checkpoint games so I hate checkpoints in general. And adding bugs into the mix just makes it even more frustrating (yes games should be bug-tested and ideally shouldn't have bugs to begin with, but every game has some bugs and being able to save often and reload an earlier save helps alleviate this). The only thing I hate more than having to keep redoing something that I'm failing is having to keep redoing it when I don't even feel like it's my fault due to bugs/crashes/etc.

When I was younger I had some of the problems you describe with quick saving where I was reloading my saves too frequently and not really enjoying it, but once I realized what was going on I trained myself not to load so much and the problem went away. But there's nothing I can do to reduce the problems I have with checkpoints which is why I consider that to be the worse alternative.

However, I think a combined save system is ideal (checkpoints/autosaves for backup and manual saving for whenever I want). And I really wouldn't mind if such a system had an option to disable quick saving. I'd still use the quick saving, but if other people enjoy the game more with that disabled then that's fine too :) It's too bad games don't offer the option though.

As it has been said before, I think that it depends on the kind of game. Generally I'm fine with every kind of save, but I understand why some people don't like certain save systems, as sometimes the person who is playing and the way he/she plays can be a factor when discussing which save system is "better".

Absolutions check pointing are pretty good. Frequent and you got a couple you could manually use per level. Well built game. Quite enjoyable too.

I also dislike if the game uses only auto saves in combination with longer save spans and increased occurrence of quick kills/instakills. I dislike even more is a cut scene without pause button support that are accessible only after long boss battle or long tedious activity.

toxicTom summed it up quite well.
I don't live alone. Sometimes people simply come to my room and interrupt me. They ask me if I am free and even if they notice it is not the best time and back up, my attention is already lowered.
When I used to have on-call support, sometimes phone just started ringing and it wasn't an option to mute it or call back later when I am done.

The latest incident was The Lost Odyssey. It is inspired by Final Fantasy, save system included. I was killing my time waiting for a friend to pick me for weekend grill party. Of course, there was a part where you walked for long time without any save points in sight and in the end, just next to - for time being - unreachable save point, cut scene introducing time-demanding boss battle began.
Letting my friend waiting for me a hour isn't a valid choice in polite society, so I wasted half a hour of my time as a result.

Challenge isn't about grinding somewhat easy battles for 30 minutes and loosing a progress by crash, unexpected event or one wrong thumb move.

I would say having more play-style options works best. Does the person not be able to use manual auto saves? Sure, choose Ironman or something. Just like the last XCOM did that.

They're making modern games without quicksave? :/

Yeah, a lot of modern games don't have save-anywhere at all (much less quick saves). A lot of them have only checkpoints and when you save it records your progress up to the last checkpoint you hit. And even worse, some of them only have one save slot that automatically updates (completely out of your control) and if that one save slot gets corrupted you lose your progress. Sometimes even backing up the save game folder didn't work for those games because of the DRM not allowing the game to recognize a copy/pasted save, but I think that was mostly a GFWL issue so I guess that won't be a problem for future games anymore.

Gah, always kinda hated that in the PoP games =/ I thought in modern times you'd at least be free to save your game whenever (okay, maybe not during combat :P) and wherever you want to!

lol, what? really what are you talking about? the checkpoints are atrocious, and they dont save anything, everything respawn on the level, if an enemy was right beside you (and you knock him off or kill him) he will spawn there ALIVE and screw up your "checkpoint"
This is not something I only complain about, if you check the IO forums all users are complaining about this and pretty much if you google it on the internet too
to be honest everyone is trying to forget this bad game even IO admit it was a bad implementation of ideas and they fail, it wasnt a real hitman at all....

yeah but Hitman fans cried that spoilt little bitches when that game came out. But re spawning enemies is challenging the player is not? It seems to be why people adore dark souls?

so you are comparing an action combat rpg with an stealth game based on dressing and mimicking with your enemies?
re spawning enemies is not a challenge is dumb implementation and they did it because it was cheaper, adding a proper save system is more expensive than using a cheap checkpoint one. I can understand it when it is an indie company not when it is a triple A one.

I personally hate respawning enemies. I haven't played the Hitman game, but it sounds like the enemy can respawn right in your face when you load the game. That would drive me nuts and could potentially make the game unwinnable if the enemy has a chance to kill you in the split second after the loading screen disappears. In Dark Souls the enemies respawn when you use a bonfire to level up and such, and I didn't encounter any enemies that would be close enough to a bonfire to attack when the game loads (although I only got about halfway through the game before I drifted away from it).

Didn´t know about that............Nice! :D
Well, not really. I actually remember I played "Doom" without quicksaves because since they were "quick" I feared they´d get erased, so the only save I used was the normal one.
Plus one time I pressed the key right next to the "quick save" (I couldn´t see the key in the dark) and I accidentally did a "quick load" in a situation that totally made me swear never ever again a "quick save" and as a matter of fact I almost never use a "normal" save. Only in RTSs when the mission gets too long for one go.

Oh, okay. That sounds less bad then, but I'm still not a fan of it.

That happened to me once in Unreal. Since then I always make sure that the Quick Save and Quick Load are at least several buttons away from each other :P (Like F5 and F8 instead of F5 and F6)

Haha, yes. I totally keep my fingers far from the function keys :P
But in the rare event I use them I put them in the middle and last group so I can recognize them by touch, since they´re grouped by four. Luckily backlighted keyboards are great saviours :D