Thanks for the info on the saw. My use would be like yours, primarily rough carpentry. I have a bunch of decorative "garden ties" to replace, and the 12" saw will handle them.
I have a $24 1/2" hammer drill from them - flawless for the few times I've used it. The cordless 9.6V is pretty much useless, except for maybe drilling a couple of holes in a project box. I love their cheap $2.99 meters for monitoring stuff, and as a source of LCD displays for projects. Haven't seen that price for a while though. It's kinda fun to watch them mis-measure noisy DC. :-)
Ed