Warning: that $130 trowel I bought for field work was a total waste and everyone told me I needed it
Everyone in my dig crew swore a fancy pointing trowel was the difference between finding pottery and missing it, but after 6 weeks in the dirt at a site near Tucson my $12 hardware store one dug just as clean. What cheap tool are you secretly still using while everyone pushes the expensive one?
There's a whole business built around convincing people the cheap version won't work, and it's not just tools. Kitchen knives, hiking boots, pens, you name it. Some guy on a forum says you need the $200 version and suddenly the $15 one you've used for years feels wrong. I've fallen for it more than once and every time I go back to the cheap thing I realize I got played. The markup on "professional grade" stuff is wild when a hardware store copy does the same job in the same dirt.