I'm a little late to this discussion, and others have already expressed the same take that I have on this, but I'll just add my $0.02 - I always choose Doug Thompson's tools first. Idon't see much difference among any of the higher quality tools, steel-wise, but Doug is a great guy, an individual (not a big corporation), and has done a lot for the woodturning community. He's been helpful to me on more than one occasion. I just plain like the guy so I give him my business whenever I can.