The More You Know! 🌈🌟

 https://www.baltimoresun.com/1992/04/05/invoking-a-mystical-name-black-decker-hopes-dewalt-tools-reputation-will-conjure-new-business/

 Yeah.

(EDIT, LATER)

Honestly, the Dewalt line wasn't bad if you bought at the right level... before The Great Enshitification.

 If you use a cordless drill on the daily, you shouldn't be buying the entry-level line which is intended for the casual homeowner, who is expected to use it ten times a year.

 I found that out the hard way and burned through a basic one in maybe a decade of near-daily haunted house construction and other projects like repairing my 100 year old home. 

 Mind you, I dropped that drill off the top of an eight food ladder more times than I can count.  Not terrible for a $120 drill in 1980s dollars. I wore out the clutch and the gearbox, it lasted maybe a decade total.

I was still buying things at big box stores when it was time to replace it, and a salesman with whom I had a tiny bit of amusing history, was honest with me. (!!)

time out: he may have been an alien studying humans
and not a real salesman, what he definitely was not was a used
car salesman in plaid pants - I know when I'm being upsold.
When someone asks more questions than they push a product,
when they actually listen to your answers before recommending
something, that is when you've found two-legged GOLD.

 He convinced me the "Pro" line (this was twenty years ago or more) drill was worth over $200 in 1990s bucks.  It was an ouch, I've never been well off.  It addressed all the gripes I had had with the old one: it has a metal chuck with 10X better gripping power instead of a weak-ass, hated, rubber-covered chuck with poor gripping power, a metal gearbox instead of half-plastic, and a better designed clutch, a motor with more oomph, a collar for add-on handles (the one from my biog Milwaukee fits) - you get the idea.

 That was more than twenty years ago.  I still use it daily when I am working on projects in the shop.  It's starting to have small hiccups like the clutch sometimes not wanting to go into lock-up drilling mode, which requires a little fiddling.  The commutator is beginning to make an aroma on high load holes.  The biggest problem I ran into was when the old school NiCd battery packs started to go bad and they weren't available from DeWalt or anyone else, not for love nor money.†

ANOTHER TIME OUT
DID I HEAR SOMEONE SAY,  "FOOK PROPRIETARY BATTERY PACKS"?

 Well anyway, some observant person has spun up a line making NiMH battery packs which fit Dewalt (probably others, haven't looked) and a charger which recognizes and charges either an old NiCd or a new NiMH pack for some very reasonable sum, however my first charger died quickly and had to be exchanged.  There was a startling one year warranty on it, even though I bought it through that place we're supposed to be avoiding...

 Meanwhile, the utterly undaunted / undented / uncracked plastic and rubber case has proved that you do not need an aluminum (or god forbid, steel) cased drill like granddad's to obtain durability.  My wrists and harms hurt enough already, I remember how much those things weighed.  Also they have tiny pistol grips that all of my fingers don't fit onto.  WTH??  I know my mom was short, but was everyone back when tiny, with tiny hands to boot?  IDGI.  I see them at garage sales and I always pass them by.  They arebn't even worthwhile as a restoration project to gift to someone.

Leatherworkers don't make buggy whips any more either. ;)

 But now, I honestly do not know whether they are any good any more, and it looks like in the next year I might have to shop around and find out.  :/

__________________________________________________
† this is a fine thing because Cadmium was becoming a real
problem, we do not want it in our landfills and water tables