Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA
>There's a lot in your post - bears printing out.

I'm not a new guy, mostly; though I have been so focused on carpentry since we bought our house a decade ago that I feel like one. I've certainly come to a lot of the same discoveries myself over 39 years of struggling with tools (I'm 58; I really started using tools properly at 19, when I bought my first motorcyle; thus, 39 years). What you've said can't be repeated often enough; even a member of my family, who shall remain nameless but who is older than I, has fallen into some of the traps you describe.