Originally Posted By: DWallach
After chatting with my grandmother, it's apparently other people who like to hear my departed grandfather's voice.

Okay. It was sort of understandable if your grandmother wanted it but other people is just kinda weird to say the least.

Originally Posted By: DWallach
Next step: shopping for something simple and bulletproof.

When I bought a new answer machine for my mum, I just found the cheapest digital one that I could since that meant it had the least features as well. It just has on/off, play, stop and delete buttons with a big LED counter for number of messages. The only thing I ever need to do is occasionally reset the clock on it.