I'll toss my opinions into this:

1) I believe a $99 (Or a $200) flat fee uneducated technician hurts our industry in many ways.

2) If I have to wade through some folks blowing off steam to get to some useful, and FREE information, I'm happy.

3) Personally, I'm not interested in remaking an entire forum to suit my personal desires, unless maybe if I'm the moderator.

4) It appears this thread has got a bit out of hand. If your goal is to argue (Nothing wrong with that), there are better forums. Political forums are great for this kind of thing.

5) In any group, it's wise for the newer members to sit back a bit and see the flow of the group before jumping in with guns blazing.

We all have at least one thing in common. We are interested in hard drives, and recovery of data from them. Perhaps we should focus on our common ground.