Yes, these are comfortable pants.  The elastic waist does add to the comfort by stretching when you're active.  The cotton canvas material breathes well for summer wear and also insulates pretty good for colder weather.  The pants are cut roomy, have double material in the seat and knees.  The rear pockets are large and the number of patch pockets allow you to carry a lot of stuff.  But these pants share the one major downside of the Royal Robbins Billy Goat pants from which they are derived.  They shrink.  Mostly in the length but also some in the waist as well.  And they continue to shrink over time.  They seem to come a little oversized when new to help make up for this shrinkage but the sizing is not really consistent which leads to differences in fit over time.  I have some 5.11 pants that still fit me well in both the waist and inseam, some that are now "high water" pants that look goofy since they hit me above my ankles and some that are now too tight in the waist.  All of them started out the same size.  Since cotton does stretch with wear, those that are only a little tight in the waist are still wearable but not as comfortable as they started out even considering the elastic waist band.  I was originally very impressed with 5.11 pants, so much so that I bought several pair in various colors.  Now I have an assortment of pants in various stages of fit.  Take it from someone with experience, wash these things in cold water and dry them without any heat.  Even taking these precautions, I still had shrinkage problems.

As an alternative to the 5.11 tac pants, I've found Tru-Spec 24/7 in ripstop poly/cotton to be an excellent choice.  The Tru-Spec pants are comfortable year-round despite being mostly polyester, they handle hard use extremely well, they have roomier (and more) pockets with some of the strongest Velcro ever made and they don't shrink even a fraction of an inch despite many washes.  The only downside to the poly/cotton Tru-Specs would be for those who might be in proximity to open flames and burning embers due to the polyester content--be careful around a crackling campfire.