I think it would be pretty cool too. For those times when you are out of range of a tower and in range of each other, you could chat up your pals out at the campsite or whathaveyou.

And if you and your ilk load some kind of meshing or 'router app' on these advanced (non-hobbled) handheld radios, you might have a better chance of getting in touch with that out of range person by routing packets across radios until you're at the internet. Even if you limit the bandwidth to text messages for this feature, it could be a real lifesaver for folks needing to get emergency messages out.