I'm with you on this one. My Delta dust collector sounds like an F16 taking off and like you said in your previous post it's mostly going to be just used for sucking up dirt and cleaning the shop during or after a days work. It's not that I'm going to be vacuuming for hours either.
Apparantely some of the craftsman are rebranded ridgid vacs. The Feistol is more aimed at dust collecting while the Fein a shop vac. Most of the money paid for those higher priced brands is the noise level they produce and the dust filtration. I guess those blow less dust out than comes in compared to the cheaper brands. Add to that all the Hepa and other expensive accessories which you're pretty much forced to buy cause they Fein doesn't really come with anything but the shop vac. Will look into the Ridgid and Crafsman and see who's got what in stock. I have a local Sears and Home Depot 10 minutes drive away.