Ship69 - Jumping in here to see if I can't help a bit (forgive me if I'm repeating any of what's already been said).
I've read the original GTD book three times, listened to the audio book twice, and recently read the new 2015 edition. Did the 2 hour 49 minute audiobook work for you? If so, I would listen to that, even though it's from 2002. In my personal experience, there's not much new in the 2015 edition -- it's more of a marketing strategy to get new people interested in the book than it is an addendum to the original (not that there's anything wrong with that - the more people that learn about GTD the better, in my view!). In other words, you're not missing much; so if you want a refresher, the 2002 audiobook would more than suffice.
The world is obviously a different place than it was in 2002. But the principles of the methodology haven't changed. There's nothing in the new edition that says "Remember when I said it's important to Capture, Clarify, Organize, Reflect, and Engage? Yeah, well, that doesn't apply anymore because of the iPhone."
The only real meat I remember reading was the additional chapter with some scientific studies that validate the effectiveness of the GTD method, which are interesting to know about.
Having said that, I know that you still want some advice about how to apply GTD in the new world, particularly with regards to GTD apps. I hear your frustration about David Allen remaining technology-agnostic. I do think there's good reason for that. I think it's easy to think that GTD is about lists and folders and calendars and all the other physical stuff. But GTD is really a set of habits, and
that's what the book is about (this becomes more clear after multiple readings and after reading
Making It All Work -- by the way, that reminds me, you might also want to check out
Ready For Anything, which is only about 150 pages long:
http://www.amazon.com/Ready-Anything...=sr_1_1&sr=8-1)
So my advice to you would be to make sure you understand the fundamental habits before searching for the perfect app. If you feel you already
do understand the fundamental habits, and if you've integrated them into your life, then there's still the matter of what app to use, etc. I'm sorry I do not have a specific recommendation.
But I will tell you that in my life I have found that people tend to grossly overestimate the number of features they think they need to implement the GTD workflow.
I think people want to put everything on a sort of auto-pilot, "set-it-and-forget-it" type thing where some computer algorithm just tells you what to do and then you do it. I think the people that feel this way are still operating in a suboptimal paradigm. I think it's easy to focus too much on the Next Actions lists and think "THAT'S what GTD is!" That's not what GTD is -- it's just one piece of the puzzle that got promoted way beyond what David Allen intended. I don't spend more than a few minutes each day looking at my NA lists. OmniFocus is rarely open. I spend a little more time in my calendar, but not much. I spend most of my time working on things I decided for myself during the previous week's review, and I try to process my inboxes in interstitial time ("When in doubt, clean a drawer.") The power of GTD is the
peace of mind that allows me to feel comfortable with whatever I find myself working on, which a lot of times includes interruptions that were never on any list. It's the feeling that nothing is lurking under the floor boards, of not always being in "emergency-scan mode," because everything is captured and organized into a trusted system you review regularly.
I'll caveat this all with the obligatory "everyone's different." I know that members of this forum have unique lives that demand more focus on one element of GTD over another. But just to be clear, my main point is that you may be overemphasizing certain parts of the workflow. Your wish list might be reasonable for how you think you want to work. I'm trying to argue that you may need less than you think.
