Yea, what Spidey said.
As we all know, the Muenter (italian hitch) puts a twist in the rope, so even as a belay ya gotta be careful and manage the rotating, spiralling line.
In lowering big stuff, you get plenty of friction, no doubt, for that's the beauty of of the dual 'rope-on-rope' and 'rope-on-steel' friction in a most excellent configuration; but the lengthwise rotation it puts on the rope...... if the entire length of the rope were suspended, the spin could spin out (like in abseiling a rope whose end hangs just above ground.
But lowering big wood isn't like that. You're belaying a line and controlling a load, moderating friction, bowing to the law of gravity. With the Muenter, the rope you're feeding through your belay hand is rotating, and the axial spin can not travel down the rope, why?, because it's lying in a hank on the ground next to you. Eventually, when the spin accumulates, you have a large amount of spin in a short length of rope. You're bringing down a heavy load, you feel a wad of rope curling and coming toward your belay hands from behind you, you see there's no avoiding it now, the spinning, twisting coiling mass is now pulling toward the Muenter, if you hold it your hands will be forced into the now super hot caribiner surface....
Stopping it could melt the rope in two, and the other option, letting go altogether, aside from the impact of the crown impaling itself into the garage roof and through the hood of the car inside there, then there's the part of what's going to happen to the rope between the distance of however far your limb is going to drop, that wad, hockles, gets sucked through the friction device (pear biner) under tension, and albeit momentrily, the biner is scalding hot. Individual hockles 'roll' through the tensioned hitch, creating a 'bounce' if indeed they are able to pass. IF, the hockles become so severe that they jam the progress of the rope and you have a load hanging suspended..... you have a very dangerous situation.
SO, for a hundred and fourty dollars, you have lifetime insurance that the above scene doesn't ever happen. Would you sign up for a ten year rental agreement at $14 dollars a year? Given that this device allows you to make more money by being more efficient and more productive and safer overall. It IS a gift that keeps on giving.
I'm kinda talkin myself into getting one.