To throw in my 2 cents as well, the difference between a high end brush knot and a low end brush knot boils down to better hair selection, extra combing, and more care taken with shaping and trimming. The average user won't notice that extra 5% of effort made by European manufacturers that sets their brushes apart. It usually boils down to the small details like a chamfered rim on the knot hole, rounded edges at the base of the handle. Little stuff like that. The Chinese have been making knots long enough for their people to have gotten fairly good at it, and they probably at this point have hairhands who have been doing this for 10-15 years. If you do something long enough, you eventually "git gud." Especially when you have Western companies walking you though their quality requirements. Just because a Baofeng is a crappy entry level radio, doesn't mean they are not capable of making iPhones (which they do). In fact, if you ever hear that China has begun an invasion of Taiwan, you might want to head to the nearest phone provider and get a new cell phone. It might be the last new and/or good phone you own for a very long while.
