I have many HF tools and earn my living with them. I don't order anything,
I go to a store and look at the items I want first. As an example, their
"high end" polished wrenches (still dirt cheap) fit nuts and bolts better
than my Craftsman wrenches. The have been beaten with hammers, used every
day and plain abused and still work great, haven't broken a single one. I
have some of their air tools and they have held up well too, but I take care
of them. They do, without a doubt sell some crap, you can see it when you
look at some of their stuff in person, but it's easy to weed out the bad.
I've had very good luck. And for specialty tools I don't use every day, but
make life easier, I can afford $20 instead of 200 and make my life easier
when I do use them. Another case and point. 2 years ago I bought a roll
around, ball bearing tool box ($399), and added a hanging box for $299.
Heavy duty, nice ball bearing drawers, and came with drawer liners. A Snap
on box of this size would be $5000 and up. I'm sorry, I'm not giving $5000
for an empty box so they can hand out free tools and boxes to Nascar
rednecks and the like.
And HF is a whole lot better than they were even 5 years ago. Just go to a
store and look at the item you're interested in first if possible.
Just my $.02