The right answer I'd bet, is, as it so often is, "yes and no." Both this and "The Best" are extreme points of view, and extremes never strike me as particularly

The right answer I'd bet, is, as it so often is, "yes and no." Both this and "The Best" are extreme points of view, and extremes never strike me as particularly realistic. There's a happy medium for pretty much everything. I've never found too much trouble in judging how much research and care I need to put into any given purchase. How often will I use it? How long do I want it to last for? Is it likely to break? How much will I care if it does break? There's a limit to this of course, I don't go to Curtis' lengths. Not enough hours in the day. I have put a reasonable amount of care into buying a good laptop, desk, piano, headphones etc though. These are important to me. The list isn't particularly long. For just any old thing (including, I would say, cutlery), I have a rule-of-thumb that's served me well: never buy the cheapest, always the second-cheapest. The cheapest of any particular thing so often has had an incredible number of corners cut, but the next one up is usually just fine.