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I have recently been arguing the point that the deathwind is better than the stormbolter on the SM Drop Pod.I have found it to cause more wounds than the Storm Bolter and it more than makes up for its point cost.Now that I have said that I am curious if anybody else agrees with me or if my experience wiht it is a fluke.

Depends on what you want to do with it. On the first turn I drop pod a single squad worth 10 KPs into the enemies flank which quickly burns to death the nearest squad to flex its muscle and hopefully attract all of the available firepower of the rest of the army in the following turn. So obviously being able to give that poor suicide squad a bit more punch on the second turn and to attract maybe a bit of firepower away from the squad on the first turn I give the Drop pod a DWL and make sure the opponent knows it at the start. The whole point of this squad is to kill on priority enemy squad and then soak up as much fire power as possible on the first turn, giving the rest of my army a second turn to get into possition or pop any vehicles I missed on the first turn (because of nightfight or other rules). So for me to spend 20 points to upgrade a free drop pod (its free because the 5 assault marines that it is acting as a transport for have given up their jump packs and therefore get it for free plus any upgrades) to make it serve its purpose of a bullet sponge/squad support is well worth it to me.

And in general in most other army configurations I agree giving some of your drop pods DWL's is great bang for your buck, but sometimes you can't afford it because you need more drop pods. So its a balanacing act, a couple in amongest 6 drop pods does make for some nice objective clearing firepower though. Just don't plan on them lasting beyond the second turn unless your army has a lot of vehicles on the table that are more powerful.