The article mentions "promotional" pens, pens with logos on them. One of the things I never understood about promotional pens is how they're almost always real

The article mentions "promotional" pens, pens with logos on them. One of the things I never understood about promotional pens is how they're almost always really junky pens. So they go in the garbage. If it was a nice pen, I'd use it for awhile, and perhaps it would eventually move on to someone else. I'd think that if you were spending X dollars on promotional items, it would be worth spending 2 or 3*X dollars for items that lasted longer and also made a more favorable impression.