The problem is that if you bring your own phone to a US carrier, you don't get a discounted rate. Effectively, any wireless plan you buy will include a 2-year lock-in and the extra cost for a phone subsidy, wether you use the subsidy or not. There are a few small carriers that don't have long term contracts with built in subsidies, but there is no cost benefit to bringing your own phone to any of the national carriers.

You posted links to two stories of people who claim to be Buddhists being assholes. The asshole monk was defrocked, the article about the asshole businessmen points out repeatedly that their assholeness was extremely un-Buddhist. How does either of those examples even begin to prove your assertion that 'Buddhism is just as exploitative as any other religious cult'?

The DS does have this feature. You can just close the DS and it goes into standby mode at any time and in any game. It's not exactly "powering off", but I've had a battery charge last a week in standby (the game I was playing last Wednesday was still up and waiting for me when I went back to work yesterday).

However, neither situation will fix having to start over if you die in a dungeon that disallows saving.