[deckard1]

If you dive into the history of Stanley's woodworking hand planes, you'll see a 140 year history of bamboozlement going on. A sort of tug-of-war between consumers valuing quality and Stanley cheapening out on designs. You have their subpar Definance line, their Handyman line, and probably others from them. They possibly sold under other names as well. Their main line also went under various changes through the years. They've been putting out junk hand planes since the 1940s and perhaps earlier.

A modern Lie-Nielsen is easily as good as the best Stanley planes.

Old tools are hit or miss. Sure, the design on a drill press hasn't changed in 50 years. But the newer model probably has less runout and a better motor. Bandsaws are the same. One old tool you could never pay me enough to use is an old table saw, or radial arm saw. I like my limbs, and the only saw worth paying money for right now is a SawStop. It's like asking someone if they want to drive a car without seat belts or airbags.