Well, when I posted this thread I was just about to head out on a 10-day paddling and hiking trip. My camera shutter died on that trip but not until the last roll when we were in the airplane headed home.
Here is my trip report with photos. I got both my copies of the GS645W repaired by Frank Marshman near the end of 2015. I continued to use them for another year or two and honestly, a lot of my best work for 3-4 years was done with those cameras including
this entire series that I exhibited in 2018.
On one copy the film counter started stopping at 11 but it otherwise worked fine. Then I dropped the other one and knocked the lens slightly loose. In the the end I decided to part ways with both of them in early 2017.
I have to say that IMHO this is still the best backcountry camera ever made in terms of usability, packability and image quality. If someone would make a new film camera for sale I would want it to be a new GS645W. It's a camera that I miss to this day but I've never had reliability issues with any other cameras I've taken into the backcountry. I really don't know if it's due to the camera or simply bad luck on my part.