I've had limited time in goathead country. Yeah, a few flats. But I don't live there. I'll ride with tubes the rest of my life. Clincher now and I am going to slowly migrate to tubulars on rim at a time. I have a couple more clincher rims and 10 current wheels. All new will be tubular. (I simply never want to have a clincher come off the rim ever again. Once is enough for a lifetime.)
I don't have psimet's luck (skill?) with avoiding flats. I get quite a few each year. Big box of used tubes, many with 5-6 patches. But rarely do I encounter a flat that stumps me. Never the mess that psimet just described. And I've ridden home on a few major casing tears and sufficient greenback booting.
Ben