Totally AGREE with you. Buying that junk just costs more in the end. Lost time is the REAL killer on jobs like that. It's not just the part that fails, it's everything that grinds to a halt. I've seen guys make the same mistake and it ALWAYS bites them. Now you know why the good stuff costs more upfront.

Saw that happen to my friend's maple tree... they had this perfect volcano of mulch that looked so tidy. All it did was trap moisture and hide those girdling roots until the whole thing started leaning. Took years off that tree's life for sure.

Totally! My mate who volunteers on digs once showed me a photo of a broken wooden spinning top from like the 1600s. It was just a kid's toy someone lost, plain as day. Stuff like that hits different because it's so normal it's magic.