I am wondering if I should switch to Atmel to use their more flexible watch dog timer.
The more "flexible" a watchdog is, the more likely it is to not catch a runaway. My philosophy here is that any watchdog that can be changed by ano other means than 2 consequtive different writes to resatrt it is only of marginal value.

Erik

PS I share your "complaint" about the length of the WD timer. You CAN achieve the 98% protection a non-ultimate WD provides by using the old "intel kluge PCA4 watchdog" which is in the PCA for compatilbility. There you can get longer timeouts.