I should have worded the original question better.
I have finally learned - that for appliances, etc. that much of the time the best value for us is in the 40-75% range - not the top of the line, not the bottom of the line, but around the middle of the line.
Sometimes all the bells and whistles are just too complex for me to figure out. Sometimes those seem to be the first things to fail. A lot of the time it's the budget that says: This is what you can afford. Deal with it.