I've been puzzling over the HF toolbox phenomenon for years. One of the primary reasons I come to GJ, it's a great place to do research. After a few years of observation, here's my conclusion: The strategy most buyers use seems to be:
Buy a lower 44 cabinet on sale, because it's all you can justify to your wife, who already think it costs too much, even on sale. Be pleased with it, and use it for a few months and then start getting truck tool envy. Buy a Snap-on emblem for $35 on ebay, and replace the US General logo with that. That buys you a few months more of satisfaction; you brag to your friends about your Snap-on toolbox, and with them only seeing it in passing by it, you figure that they're impressed. Then you start getting envious again, plus the latches start to irritate you, and you're reluctant to let your buddies work in your garage because they'll notice that the box is fake. So you watch for a Snap-on box on Craigslist the same color as your US General. With the Snap-on logo you thoughtfully applied a few months ago to your current box and the same color, you can probably sneak in a similar size and color truck box in without the wife figuring it out.
When you finally find a new box, it has a top box with it. You buy it, and sneak it into the house. You put your US General box out for sale on Craigslist for $200 more than you paid for it, with a story of it as a 1990's Snap-on box from your ex-wifes father in laws estate; and claim you know nothing about it, but just want it to go to a good home to make your ex FIL proud. When it sells, you use that money to offset part of the new toolbox purchase, and justify the rest of the money that's missing as the purchase price of the new "top box" that your wife has just noticed is in the garage.
You've managed to sidestep all the HF top box purchase angst, and all is well with the world.
HF knowing all this is going on, doesn't discount the top boxes, as they know they'll sell almost none anyway.
