I think I've heard that hard suitcases are best for international air
travel, but I'm not sure why this would be the case. Are they better
able to stand all the handling that may or may not be unique to
international air travel than soft-sided luggage?

Some of the links in this answer might be of interest:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=523515

Nautico,

I can't post my link as an answer, since the question has already been
officially answered by another GAR.

~Pink

Keystroke, GA users should not have to ask explicitly for citations.
That's a given in a research service that depends for its credibility
and usefulness not on a GAR's personal opinions or experiences, but on
his or her ability to construct an answer based on a sampling of
reasonably authoritative web sources. In this instance, both of us
would have been better served if you'd initially cast your answer as a
request for clarification, not as an answer per se. That said, this is
not a crisis, just a lesson learned. :)

I'd say the only "lesson learned" is to not answer questions asked by
nautico-ga. I must agree with keystroke-ga that you never asked for
citations, and for $2, you received the answer you paid for. The one
star rated was uncalled for and inappropriate.

 - artqs

I would have to agree with artqs here. I am new to the google answers
world and the only lesson learned here is that people asking questions
should in fact ask the whole question and not expect the google
researcher to magically know that they need to display a set of
citations to a question that, in not so many words, asks for general
information on why hard luggage is better. The people who ask
questions from what I have seen on this site actually ask for what
they require and do not expect the researcher to just know.

This is from the google help

"Define the answer you want. Let the Researchers know what will and
won't be a good answer for your question. For example, "I want names
of record stores in Chicago. I don't want names of record stores in
the suburbs of Chicago, only in the city itself." Or, "I want the
names of all the recent American Presidents and their wives. By
recent, I mean from 1960 on. I don't want anyone from before 1960.""

In otherwords, ask for citations, don't expect the researchers to
magically know you want them. Artqs summed it up very well. Give the
researcher time to get back to you. Also if other researchers didn't
post the answer further down it would not get the original answerer
into trouble or have them receive poor ratings. In this case it looks
like Pinkfreud did a bad thing for the google researcher in question.
If a researcher is answering the question or is taking charge, leave
it alone and look for another question to answer. I have seen someone
called Bobbie7 do exactly the same, someone was answering the question
waiting for a clarification and Bobbie7 just stormed in and took over
and basically stole the question from the original researcher. I find
this to be really rude and thoughtless on the part of the second
researcher.

This is coming from someone who is not a google researcher but may ask
questions very soon. I would not want a second researcher jumping into
a question that the first researcher had spent time on and was trying
to help me with.

Just some advice from a potential customer. (I find yahoo answers to
be really childish and lack any sort of sensible quorum for replies).

usrhlp.

It seems that there is some confusion about the expectations (from
both the customer and Google Answers editors) about what information
the researcher is supposed to provide.

Google Answers is a research service -- not just an answers service.
Researchers have a set of guidelines they are supposed to follow.
There are three elements that are supposed to be included in every
answer: the researched answer, helpful links and search strategy. Long
time customers like nautico-ga are familiar with this format and
expect their answers to include these elements. New customers coming
from other answers services that don't have similar requirments may
not have these expectations. Researchers who haven't been active for a
long time may also be unfamiliar with the GA style guides and thus
skip one or more of the elements that all researchers are supposed to
include.

Some customers may be disappointed when they don't get a complete
answer but choose not to rate a question. Here's a discussion about
the meaning of GA ratings from the researcher perspective.

http://web-owls.com/2006/08/25/what-do-star-ratings-mean/

As for the above comments, personally I have always appreciated
Bobbie7's answers and she always seems to be on target-- and fast! 
Unless a particular researcher is involved in an extended discussion
with the questioner or has done much research on a particular
question, unless they have locked it, the question is open to all
researchers. That is just the way it works and it's first come, first
serve!

The main thing is that the person who asks a queston has his or her
question answered-- I think everyone on Google Answers would agree.

I do hate arguments, so here's a totally irrelevant Comment:

My daughter arrived back home (in the UK) from Florida last Tuesday
but her very expensive, fairly new, hard suitcase arrived badly
smashed up.

Naturally, she reported it immediately.

Fortunately, all the contents were OK.

But, amazingly, a brand new suitcase (same make) was delivered to her
house on Thursday.

They don't get any better than that!

"Long time customers like nautico-ga are familiar with this format and
expect their answers to include these elements."

Roger that! I have indeed been a long-time GA customer and have, until
this incident, been very pleased with the answers. We who use this
service routinely expect the kinds of answers for which Pink Freud is
famous. Other GARs would be well advised to emulate her.