@val_wilson nailed it honestly. Most expensive stuff just makes people feel better about themselves, not work better.

Same here. I always tell new guys, "That week was the exception, not the rule.

Oh man, "my tripod leg just gave out" is exactly what happened to me last fall. I was setting up for sunset shots at a park and one of the plastic twist locks just snapped clean off. The whole thing folded up like wet cardboard and my 70-200mm took a hard spill onto gravel. I read somewhere that around 30 percent of cheap tripods have those locking mechanisms fail after a few months of regular use. It's really frustrating because you think you're saving money but then you're out a lot more for a lens replacement.

no way you went straight for the hair dryer without checking the actual grease first? i mean i get wanting to save time but that gritty feeling is just the old crusty lube turning into sand basically. you basically baked the old stuff into a paste. i did something similar with a cheap zoom lens once and learned the hard way that heat is just step one of like six. you gotta accept that helicoid cleanup is a full afternoon project not a 10 minute hack.

My realtor told me the same thing about dropping PMI early, but I've seen too many people in my neighborhood get stuck with it for years when values stayed flat. That 5% down leaves you with ZERO cushion if anything goes wrong with the roof or furnace in the first year.