"Brian, you're absolutely correct and I couldn't agree more.  The funny thing is, I liked Hitachi tools. I have a hammer drill from them that has worked beautifully for me for almost 10 years now. I had been considering one of their miter saws too.  But now I am having second thoughts. How many great tool companies have been gutted and made into crap? Craftsman, Porter Cable, Dewalt, all were great tools at one point.  Then they decided to cheap out on parts to increase their margins.  It worked in the short term, until consumers caught on to the change and stopped trusting the brand.  Now those names that took decades to build were wiped out in a couple of years.  This sounds just like what they are doing.  Take a name with a good reputation, due to the fact that they are made in Germany, and slap it on products made somewhere else.  This will not create a sustainable increase in marketshare for Hitachi/Metabo tools in the consumer market but it will hurt their Metabo brand in the commercial market, IMO.  We've seen this all before. "

"I read the same thing and have been confused for a while. I just dug a little further in that link and the FAQ mentions something about New Zealand regulations. I then looked in at the domain of the link and it looks like this press release is only applicable to New Zealand and not the US market. "