Little equipment produced today is actually new or improved, save a few things. Most gear is molded plastic with 5-20000% production cost markup at retail, often shipped by those who don't actually make or even design anything and simply re-market logo-slapped colors or lines for nominal slave labor factories. There's an abundance of unwanted new or lightly used equipment for cheap or almost free that's otherwise landfill-bound. Price point—rather than experimental high-performance equipment—is necessarily produced to maximize revenue. The capital outlay for a truly new design dwarfs investment for a minimum run of open mold plastic with ...