Mike:

I admire and trust you, but I need more info, please.

I'm tired of hearing that our inability to compete in a worldwide marketplace is primarily due to our superior standards and intellect.

I'm saddened that in the electrical safety marketplace we cannot seem to "sell our goods" because we rely on past standards and not on innovation. That's a tough, a MIGHTY tough, row-to-hoe but when "pro's" claim "professionalism" that is in fact our row!

What good is it, I challenge, if our "professionalism" is beyond the affordability of the average consumer? What morality is there to our demand to be protected by government/codes/standards for delivering a product that is NOT, as rated by our CONSUMERS, reasonably priced?

I'm sorry if I'm off-thread here, and I have to say I've been unwilling to express my concern in any other forum but yours, but I feel COMPELLED to ask:

(1) Have we priced our expertise out of reach of the average citizen's budget? (2) If we've done so - I SAID IF! - are we part of the solution, or, like so many other merchants of gold, are we part of the paper-pauper'$ unreachable nervana?

Been a long-time member; been reluctant to do other than lurk and absorb and be awed by you and yours, but, PLEASE, let me ask: Are we trying to establish a plateau for all while giving most not the slightest hope of economically achieving it, because of our fixation on LICENSURE instead of INTEGRITY?

If I could afford the best, the safest, the cleanest, the coolest, the neatest, hell yeah - I'd probably buy the ... iPhone, wii, xBox; having bought, then replaced, then replaced the replacement, for GFI, then AFCI, now what - why wouldn't I just "fault" to gimmicks? Now what?

"Now what" is to replace the replacement experts; start all over again, maybe, but maybe leave out the bureaucrats and the power-brokers (unions?) and let the CONSUMERS tell the PRO's who is driving the train.

Thanks, Mike - and to your forum - for giving a place to this rant of mine.

Thanks then also goes to CONSIDERED and RESPONSIBLE consideration of what drives frustrated consumers to such "depths of depravity" as this.