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Frank
I agree with your post re: ‘pseudo’ sextants entirely, not that I’ve ever bought one.  We’ll that’s not quite true; I did buy a ‘pseudo’ box sextant, because I wasn’t sure what went on inside one.  It was of course hopelessly inaccurate and optically dangerous. Apart from being almost worth its weight in brass, I did find it use for it.  When discussing Chichester’s flight over the Tasman Sea, it was useful in explaining how he could manage to shoot astro while flying a tiny, relatively unstable biplane with ill-fitting floats at extremely low level without flying into the sea. I must admit, the first time I read his book I thought ‘box sextant’ was a typo for ‘sextant box’.  DaveP