HMM.... painters, brushes true, I used to spend so much money on sable brushes till i discovered DRAYLON, way better, way cheaper
the other thing is, perhaps it's good to be able to see gear in 2 camps:
1. gear for mastering/final product (after the demos, payed for by someone else)
2. and gear for creating
the two dont have to be the same in terms of quality, for creating music, noise spec's etc isnt really relevent.
then also you have the factor that cheap gear has created genre's in recent years and some genre's only sound right on cheaper gear
As for the 'copying' thing, If i'm working on studio building jobs like putting in stud walls etc i just couldnt give a toss if my chisel is a decent chinese-made generic set or top quality MARPLES.... it used to be like that, but nowadays go on a building site and people just use cheap 'throw-away' saws etc rather than getting an expensive one with a nice woooden handle, having it sharpened regularly and all that ****ing palava - it's a disposable society we live in guys at the end of the day
I tell you what, i was talking to a builder the other day who had a cheap-ass B&Q china-made cordless drill in 'clone' yellow & black DeWALT colours ... i'd seen them in the store and decided NOT to buy one 6 months earlier cos i didnt know if it would be reliable, but it was sooooooooooo bloody cheap, I mean ludicrously cheap... anyways, this builder had one, he had owned it for a year and said it was absolutely great!
Oh yes... and i'd vote also for The BCF2000 - i've got 2 of them running Logic and they rock ass - 16 channels of perfectly sync'd control with 1 pot for each of the 4-band eq parameters (4x4) all for peanuts - absolutely superb value! - the bcr is also superb value and works great, it's a dream for any s/w with or without LEARN ability.
mind you, now the Chinese Govt have adjusted their currency last week i wonder how it'll pan out for prices of chinese made studio-gear in the future.