so when is a pro saw necessary, if you are REALLY REALLY only EVER going to cut the odd skinny tree for a bike trail but then why not just use a bow saw?
because the chainsaw is faster.
edit - i'd say the pro saw is necessary if you're using it to make a living and/or running it for multiple hours every day, say 15hrs a week or more.
I think my point was if you always buy cheap saws are they still cheap after you are buying your 2nd or 3rd cheap saw and how many people are buying [HTML_REMOVED]1 saw?
i guess it depends on how you're defining cheap. personally i know i got a lot of use out of my poulan and still have it but rarely use it anymore unless i want to stash a saw on the mtn for a little bit. for me i'd consider the poulan a mid grade saw, but not as good as the major brands homeower type saw. if you look after that saw properly it will last a long, long time. probably even a lifetime with anything up to 25hrs of running time/per year - which is actually a fair bit of cutting time.
it's not that i completely disagree with you here, i just think you're taking the cheap vs pro saw comparison to an extreme that really doesn't apply for the avg occasional user.
We don't know what our limits are, so to start something with the idea of being limited actually ends up limiting us.
Ellen Langer