operating these things while wired in is just a huge pain in the ass. Meanwhile my neighbors who have battery powered equivalents are doing just fine.

operating these things while wired in is just a huge pain in the ass. Meanwhile my neighbors who have battery powered equivalents are doing just fine. My mower (which came with the house) is battery powered and works great. Yeah, sometimes "worse is better." I went from a gas-powered leaf blower to a 40V Ryobi leaf blower and I use it probably 25X as often because of the convenience. It's quiet enough to use late at night for cleanup in the garage without worrying about waking the neighbors (also I won't die from using a gas-powered device in an enclosed space...) The 40V leaf blower is obviously less powerful, but it's powerful enough and has more than enough power and runtime to clean up a 1/4 acre suburban yard or maybe even twice that. But [batteries] are definitively an additional point of failure and complexity. Well, theoretically yes! But in practice it certainly seems the answer is no, they're not really a failure point. This is the height of unscientific anecdota, obviously, but on forums and comment sections and such I just don't see people having battery issues with these major brands. I think Li-Ion batteries are pretty mature technology at this point. There's a little bit of complexity in the battery itself because it keeps track of its charge level. Then the tools themselves seem to be pretty much braindead simple w.r.t battery technology. They are simply expecting some DC input from the battery. And the battery shuts itself off when the level is too low. Worst comes to worst, a battery fails, you get a new one for a fairly reasonable cost. Once you buy into a tool system you will probably have at least two batteries so you're not dead in the water in the meantime.