The cons, you don’t buy spurs and start hunting, a normal person doesn’t anyways, they leave more damage to bark on trees than climbing sticks, whether that hurts trees or not and bothers you is your decision, more than likely depends on your land owner and how they are about stuff like that, your foot wear choice becomes more important, you shouldn’t be climbing with spurs and rubber ducky boots, climb a soft wood tree with a million limbs and let me know how comfortable you are free climbing with spurs and no linesman belt hooked up, nobody will admit it but I will its going to happen, a nice hardwood tree with a couple limbs sure use your tether as a second linesman and stay hooked up all the time, thats not gonna happen in a soft wood, coming down is the hardest if your not rappelling, I have seen muscle bound animals of men get 10 feet up and come down with there knees knocking in spurs and I am your typical paunched up dad and can squirrel around in a tree with spurs and never miss a beat, spurs are an awesome option, it really just comes down to how much practice your willing to do in preparation for season, and when I mean practice not a limbless 15” perfect straight as an arrow tree unless thats all you plan on hunting out of. Hope this helps, I’m not negative on spurs, you asked for the cons, I use them some for hunting but prefer climbing sticks for hunting, I have used spurs for work 20-25 years.