Glad the folks at Kondos treated you well.  They've always been great to work with.

Totally at the other end of the spectrum.  A perfectly good pack to me already has a belt that's part of the complete suspension system designed to keep the weight over the hips and tight to the body.

Somehow it sucks less when gear fails and I can blame the faceless company.   

Just a quick follow up, contacted Kondos they added the hip belts, and shoulder straps.

I also mentioned that we had problems with the packs "slipping" (When the pack was hoisted on to your back the packs tended to slip and did not sit ideally) So they changed out the metal buckles and staps with a different style that would more match our style.  They finally patched a few small holes that where developing. (I hadn't even noticed them)

They did this in less than a month and it cost less than it would have I had purchased waist belts and installed them myself. All in all excellent customer service. In fact, far more that I would have reasonablly expected from them.

Forgot to mention that when Kondo's added side cinch straps to food pack, he suggested adding cinch straps to top of each shoulder strap.
Heavy backs tend to pull away from back, giving that slipping feeling and throwing off your center of gravity. I don't know if your packs have this feature, but if they don't you should consider it it?
 Adding them to my heavy food pack, allowed me to bring weight forward, in-line with spine and allowing hip belt to carry more of the load.
Made the balance much better as well.

I did call Kondo's today and was pleasantly surprised on how reasonable the price was. When I explained that packs seemed to slip after cinching them tight on your back,  he said make a note of that and he would look at it too. So far I am very impressed with service.

  I'm all for doing things yourself, but by the time you get material, a heavy duty sewing machine and with little or no experience, I think you might want to call Kondo's and get a price quote.

Having your waist belt fail at an inopportune time could be a real pain on a trip.

I bought a GG food pack on sale a few years back, and after getting it, decided I wanted cinch straps out on like my gear pack. Kondo's put two on each side, and for a very reasonable price.  Only possible fly in ointment of having them do it, is this is their busy time?
I'd still get a quote and take it from there

I'm not of much help with attaching a new hipbelt to an old pack, but I know Kondos will do it for you on one of their packs.  Seems like it costs an additional $13 for a new pack.  You may want to call them.

Otherwise, the design is pretty straightforward.  They use an additional piece of pack cloth and stitch it horizontally to create a sleeve for the hipbelt to slide through.  If you need a picture, PM me.

After exploring Copia this past weekend, I have it mind to attempt to add a belt to one of my Kondos packs. I find it hard to stomach the cost of the belted packs, when I have perfectly good packs at home. After doing some research it appears one can order belts from Kealty. Is there a better source?

I examined some of the packs at Copia and the job seems straight foward enough.  Even snapped a few pics of how some of how the belts where attached. (Granted I know nothing about sewing and will be attempting to explain this to my mother.) Has anyone tried this? And advice would appreciated? Possible pitfalls?