I learned on a rental freestyle board with plate bindings and rental ski boots. My angles were +15, -15. It was sweet, that setup basically immobilized my whole lower body(something that took me years to undo). Why did I like this sport again? I guess it was because my 56 year old dad was falling and laughing with me(luckily he still is). I remember wanting to throw the board into the woods and putting my skiis back on, but we'd get to the bottom of the chair and he just wouldn't give up. I figured if my "old" dad isn't giving up, I got no excuse. Anyway, after a season of getting up and falling all day, we decided falling would be much more fun on our own equipment. So, I got a Sims Neil Drake Signature edition 156 and Burton cusom freestyle bindings. It was sweet, I still have it. I got it cause the base graffic was snowboarder in handcuffs standing before a judge in a courtroom with his hands cuffed. I still have the board about 9 years later, and still ride it once or twice a season. My dad got a burton Custom 159 with this green topsheet with a pegasus(he liked the pegasus, because he said when he was riding he felt like he was flying) with the bourton freeride 3 strap bindings. His setup is still being ridden too by a liftie at our home base. At the start of this season, I set all my boards in chronological order on the wall in the basement. It was cool to look and see the shapes and sizes change with my style. Short in the beginning, then growing in length and thinning at the waist as I got into carving, then shortening again as I going back to freestyle. Some missing due to warranty failures, one missing due to being stolen.
I was actually reminded of all this last weekend when I was talking about equipment to the instructors I train at my home mountain. We were talking about advantages/ disadvantages of some new binding technology and stuff. I said that one of the best advances was slap rachets on the straps. One of the new instructors looked at me with awe and said "Dude, you rode before there were rachets?".
James