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Isn't the incentive structure for hourly completely ass-backwards? If you're a consultant there is an implied information assymetry - the client doesn't know what you are doing and has a hard time judging the amount of work required/being done. How do you handle the inherent and justified suspicion of padding billable hours?

I just can't charge hourly because I just can't imagine trusting someone who charges hourly.

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Thats what I mean when I say "as long as the trust is there on both sides". They trust that I'm honest and don't sandbag work, and I trust that they aren't going to ask for an itemized breakdown of my time. I keep a very coarse ledger of time and what I worked on, but the invoices are generally just a line item of

"Development: 30 hours"

Again, nothing is a surprise in my relationships because we constantly are in communication, and I've raised issues with them beforehand if anything comes up / diverges.

you nailed it, it’s about trust. i’ve had a couple clients for 9 years, all hourly, and never had an issue. i’ve had 20 or so clients that this didn’t work and one of us fired the other, most of the time amicably.

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