Sorry David if this sound a bit harsh, but I really feel the need to jump in here and hope, you take it as constructive critizism.
Refering to this post and the other one of yours where you ask about the reputation of Crest, it is obvious that you are not exactly an old seasoned pro in this field of audio - and there is nothing wrong with that. But then you mentioned that you are often asked for advice, and there I see a fundamental problem.
If you have to ask about the difference between Brand A and Brand B just because one item you've seen has a button more than the other one, in my opinion you are not yet qualified to give other people advise on wheter to use it or not.
You ended one of the posts you did on the Crest topic with the remark, that you will not go with the opinion of your friend anymore (who told you that Crest sucked) but with the opinion you get from everybody here on this board.
I think this is a highly dangerous attitude of yours, to spread a message solemnly based on the opinion you gather from other people without having hard facts on hand. If you want to know what a product is like then go and research it. Download the manual, read it and for everything you do not understand you do another search on the web until you REALLY know what this piece of gear does.
Then at least you can say what it DOES but you still can not make a quality statement until you critically listened to it, or maybe even had the chance to compare it to similar products.
If you then take into account all the opinions you gather from various sources like this board is, add your personal opinion and weight them up against each other based on the facts, then you are on your way to judge the product realistically.
This is the point where you are qualified to give anybody else some advice on it, but always adding how much comparisons/experience you had with comparable products.
I really think that you are on the right track with asking and participating here on the board, but if you give an uneducated advise to somebody it not only could lead to a wrong buying decision, it also does not improve your future knowledge and quality of work, not speaking about your damaged reputation if somebody figures out that you did not really know what you were talking about.
Overall, it is just not professional and that is what we all should aim for.
Thomas