Bicycling

Yes, I agree with much of what you wrote. When I bicycled with a group on my recumbent, they would pass me going up the small hills of Virginia, but I would pass them going down. The main advantage the upright bicyclists had going up a hill is that they could stand and push down on the pedals, whereas I could not. Going down the hills, my recumbent and I were more aerodynamic and thus a bit faster.
As you noted, a recumbent is not completely worthless on hills. I do believe that a recumbent did get up Mount Washington (I believe in New Hampshire) some time ago. There are individual hilly streets of such a high grade that would (I believe) defeat a recumbent but not an upright bike, but this might not matter much, as the cyclist on the upright bike would be going so slowly that the recumbent rider walking his or her bike up the hill might not really be that much behind.
In most circumstances, the recumbent rider should be okay.
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I am thinking about acquiring the m5 simply because over the course of years the 2 recumbents that I have have now reached the point of something or other often going wrong with them. One of them might need a completely new frame.