[ryandrake]

I think the point OP is making is: Say you have $1000 in a gold ETF with some brokerage somewhere. The Zombie Apocalypse comes. Banks are all failing, cities are burning, roads are torn up, and electricity is shut down.

Do you write a letter to your broker asking, "Dear, Schwab, I have $1000 in a gold ETF and shit is crazy now! Can you please have one of your customer care folks briefly stop stocking up on water and food, use a generator to turn your servers back on and verify I have that security? Then please deliver the equivalent amount of physical gold to my address via the postal system which is partially working? Thank you and look forward to continuing business with you!"

Point is, if you ever really need the physical gold behind the security it will not be available. To me, that makes the security worthless.