I am in the process of moving the kitchen in my house from one room to another. I am at the point of looking at sinks and faucets. I was looking at faucets the other day at Lowe's and I am seeing all the dollar signs and fancy designs and I'm saying to myself..."Whoa!". Faucets are not what they used to be. Simple faucets with a hand sprayer are only a small segment of the market. Now the place is jammed with pull out and pull down designs. I'm looking at all this and trying to figure out which design is going to fit my needs, my budget, and is not going to be breaking down. Is the pull out design inherently better than pull down? Or is it the other way around? And which manufacturer has a model in that design that is reliable? I've seen some postings here in this forum regarding what I thought was a reputable company and some of you have had mixed reviews of their products. Whether the exact nature of the problem is "user error" or design based...well...that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish for another discussion. Also, some manufacturers like to tout things like "diamond technology" or whatever. I couldn't give a rat's rear end if the guts of the faucet are made from a chunk of wood made by some old bearded hick out in the back woods of nowhere who's using nothing more sophisticated than a pen knife. Bottom line, if it works reliably (doesn't leak) and does so over it's lifetime (something in the neighborhood of 10 years...I don't think that's too much to ask of a faucet) then I'm fine with that.

So, it's pull down vs. pull out vs. simple spout and who's got the best implementation of that design.

Thanks for your input!!