I pretty much disagree with most of your opinions. After careful analysis and comparison and evaluation, I have made the logical choice to stay with the C3 system, it makes sense. There is little value in replacing the tools with less capable options for more money.
C3 is a dead end road. You're going to switch, just a matter of when. I wrote about staying on that platform, NOT throwing out perfectly usable tools. Big difference. Plus, you're backwards suggesting the C3 tools are more capable, when today they are usually less capable at the same price points, with very few exceptions. Maybe you can get a deal on some clearance item and that's great, but it's still a dead end platform and can hardy hurt to have a backup plan and better performing tools in the process.
Have to disagree, the reduction in wearing mechanical parts is one primary reason brushless motors last so much longer than brushed motors.
If you are having controller failures, that is a bad design or more likely an unusual exception with a particular tool, most people and most tools will never see that, MTBFs are at least 200,000 hours for every brand.
If you want to say it's bad design, okay then it is bad design to build to tool motor price points and within the available space. The two primary differences are that brushless have lower heat density and no brushes. The brushes, until no longer made are relatively inexpensive and easy to replace.
The claim that brushless last longer is just some urban myth that laymen have been repeating to look knowledgeable when that is not how it is panning out if you simply accept that a brushed motor may need brush replacement eventually. Real world use, people are having controller failures. MTBF means nothing due to how it's calculated. It's a more appropriate measure of infant mortality.
Further, besides the brushes there isn't even anything more mechanical to wear out, quite the opposite that so many brushless now depend on a more fragile frame mounted bearing that is subject to frame flex and shock while it's near impossible to shock the (rear) bearing in a brushed motor that has its own internal housing.
Believe what you will, as you can choose either type, and brushless do still have two clear advantages, for battery runtime and especially in dirty environments where less heat production means less need to pull air through them for cooling so they don't get gunked up internally as quickly.
To the contrary, another benefit of brushless motors is the control over the torque and speed curve, and the ability to make it truly linear. With a brushed motor, it's not possible to get a truly linear torque and speed curve.
Linear is seldom relevant, rather modulating small changes is. Brushed motors do this better because they have a true linear controller while brushless work in steps. Regardless, it isn't very relevant since the user can observe and adjust, except that a brushless drill is inferior for delicate work due to this, is much harder to modulate very slow speeds.
Again, brushless is a mature technology that is nearly 60 years old. It has become more viable for smaller motors in the last few decades due to improvements in controllers and electronics.
Irrelevant. Cordless tools haven't have them for nearly this long and new designs keep causing new design challenges. The tech has improved over the years but is still maturing in cordless tools. To state something like "brushless motors existed" would be like stating "airplanes existed" and denying that they are quite different today than they were when first invented.
In particular declining costs of IGBTs have made lower cost motors possible. Hard drives have been exclusively brushless for decades, for example. In other applications such as vehicle controls brushless has always been the preferred choice, since they are inherently safe and stop turning in the event of a fault, while brushless motors tend to overspeed when the motor or controller fails.
No idea what kind of point you're trying to make here. There have been inexpensive brushless motors for decades before anyone was putting them in cordless consumer grade hand tools, but merely being brushless or not is only one variable in motor construction. The total design of both the motor and tool and integration between the two, means everything if you want it to survive in the hands of someone doing construction or repair work and all the bad treatment doing so.
You seem to have a disconnect between the stresses placed on cordless tools and are overgeneralizing. I too, would prefer a brushless motor in many other applications for the efficiency and speed control, but this is apples and oranges when applied to cordless hand tools that impose their own set of unique stresses.
I would even prefer brushless in many cordless hand tools, and do own some, but frankly it has not changed getting the work done much except paying more to change out the battery a little less often.
Take it on a tool by tool basis. The C3 brushless drill is ideal for some uses, but not others, isn't especially powerful and depends on a dying battery platform. I've rebuilt battery packs and don't care much to do it again, not when there are so many nicer, higher capacity Li-Ion tool options out there today.
