I’m in the Savage camp. Get the cheapest tool first, use it until it’s insufficient. By that time, you should have figured out which features you actually need, which you don’t, and what a good tool looks like.

I’m not always certain which tools will get significant usage (some, yes, but not all). If I bought the “good” tool every time, I’d have thousands of dollars sunk into tools I rarely use.

If you have a determined field, yeah sure, spend the money up front. But if you’re a dabbler, you spend less overall cheaping out on entry models.