but, overall, no matter how much money you pour into the single tool itself, you can't make MUCH better a tool, because this is pretty low tech stuff..
I think part of it is how long something will last, not only how well it performs in a particular test. It's why I enjoy watching that Canadian guy I linked in that last power toolz thread, as he describes which parts will fail first and how well each part is made. Took apart a cheap Harbor Freight drill in his last video which promoted itself as a cheaper but 'equivalent quality' drill to a DeWalt but after examining it found some key issues that would cause it to not last as long (in addition to having BS marketing).
Anyone who believes Harbor Freight tools to be high quality is a goon, honestly. They're cheap as hell, though, and frankly for moderate use they're fine in most cases. There's also a pretty easy way to hustle their paid warranty system to end up with a new tool every year for a few bucks. It covers any kind of damage so you can literally run it over after 364 days, walk in with the pieces and walk out with a new tool.
Back when I used to help paint cars on the side we used the Harbor Freight spray guns. A Devilbiss was something like $200, the HF one was $12 (or even $8 on sale sometimes). The 1 year warranty was $4. I could get a new one once a year for 47 years and still come out ahead, assuming the Devilbiss lasted that long. Or a new one every three months for 12 years, since the warranty is a one-time use thing.
Then I ended up working at HF as a second job for awhile and I always told people the same thing. It didn't hurt that we made commission on sales of the warranties, either.
The warranty prices scale with the price of the tool, though, so it's not always a good idea. But there are certainly a lot of things where it makes sense for someone who will only use the tool occasionally.