The line about selling yours on Craigslist by Tuesday made me laugh because I did almost the same thing with hand planes. I used a cheap big box plane for years and kept telling myself the tearout was just part of working with figured wood, that I needed to sharpen better or take lighter cuts. Then a guy in my woodworking group let me run a few boards through his old Stanley and the shavings came off in one piece with almost no sanding needed after. I felt like such an idiot for all the hours I spent fighting that other plane instead of just asking to try his sooner. It is funny how we get loyal to tools that are holding us back, and we make excuses for them instead of admitting the tool is the problem. My wife still brings up how fast that plane went up for sale once I knew what I was missing.