We Now Explanium About Titanium.
(1) Titanium is... The Fairy Queen in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream? Nope. That was Titania. Dang.
(2) Titanium is... Proof that you've spent more money on your cook set (or stove, or boot lace tips) than anyone else in your hiking group (extended family, city, state, province, country, continent).
(3) Titanium is... Proof that you're trendy, and possibly an idiot, though still a trendy one. Let's hope you can dress the part.
(4) Titanium is... A metal incorrectly described by absolutely everyone stupid as "amazingly lightweight and strong, and perhaps the way to go if you're obsessive about ounces."
No, it isn't. But what would you expect to read in Backpacker magazine?
Titanium is a metal. And titanium is light, compared to uranium, but not compared to steel.
Stoveless and cook-pot-less and fuel-less is the way to go if you're obsessive about ounces, and can gag down cold suppers night after night.
Aluminum, however, is the way to go if you're obsessive about ounces and grams and price, and if you like to compare the weight of your tools to the weight of their shadows.
Titanium is only 12% lighter than steel, though it has almost all of steel's strength, while aluminum is 54% lighter than steel and still has 75% of steel's strength (Spot the trend here?), which is enough for a cook pot.
Titanium doesn't ding or dent very easily (because it's tough, which is nice), and titanium is highly resistant to corrosion (which means that it stays pretty). Since it is tough, it can be rolled thin. The thinner the material, the less there is of it, and so the less the finished product weighs, even if it's made from heavy materials, which is the real advantage of titanium.
But if you want a cooking pot and you don't care a lot about exactly how pretty it is, but you do care about how heavy it is, then aluminum is the way to go. You sort of care about how tough a pot is and you probably care a whole lot about how much it costs. You may also kind of care how beat up it's going to end up being, eventually, or not. Your call, eh?
Titanium as a material is significantly heavier and vastly more expensive than aluminum, but tougher, and those who own titanium items feel smarter because titanium looks new longer. A lot of people who feel that way don't go backpacking because if they go backpacking they will get their clothes dirty and they will get tired, and what they really above all want is to keep that just-off-the-shelf, crisply-pressed, newly-unwrapped look, while continuing to smell of aftershave. Titanium will help with that.
Titanium is for them. Titanium is for people who don't ever want to sweat or walk uphill or know that bugs might actually be attracted to them.