Jammit

Innovation and lowering costs and mass production has been on the go since year dot.

While I really appreciate excellent tools, I am also prepared to get something that is near, close or identical to the high priced item, for substantially less.

While all the luddites decry the knock off's of knock off's from people who make them in China or India etc., they also have failed to cite all the instances of every purchase they have made, purely or nearly so, on the basis of cost.

And they also have failed to cite all the times and instances, that they have gone to make things themselves, rather than pay big $$$ from their own pocket.

Irrespective of this, the issue is the balance of the out of the factory door price, how much marking up across how many ever stages; including the final sale price - that the market is willing to pay for the said devices.

When all is said and done the consumer will balance out the value of any item based upon perceived value and word of mouth.

Does the very high price really justify the quality of the product? Would the fact that product A is five times as expensive as product B, mean that the accuracy, build quality or need to resharpen also change by a factor of five?

For my tastes, one of my priorities is to have support, run by English speaking people in my own country - not outsourced barely literate script monkeys who have never seen or even dismantled and serviced the said product.

By the sounds of it, if I wanted spares and service from people who had their act together, I'd go with the LN planes; if I didn't particularly care for that and or I either could not justify the outlay for a very expensive product in light of a very similar model that had only a marginal amount of difference, then I'd buy the substantially cheaper model.