BIke Seats: First thoughts

So bike seats. We did some internet searching and looked on some forums and in some shops. I found 4 issues:

1. They looked really upright, more suitable for a much older baby
2. The baby was stuck behind you.
3. They took up the whole rear pannier rack
4. There were reports on forums of them making the bike unstable

By looking around i could find seats that didn't take up the whole pannier rack, but i really couldn't find a seat that looked comfortable for a long ride in the kind of terrain we live in. After a while i came to realise that bike seats are fine for round towns and short rides , but not for where we live... then i discovered front mounted seats. The front mounted seats seemed to solve all 4 of these problems.. time for investigation...