Well, if he's not building it himself, I think it's safe to say someone else is, and if he is an 'educated consumer' you'd hope that the person that IS building it would know about such things and be able to advise him over and above some tubemaker company propaganda or a bunch of self proclaimed experts on the Web.

I don't think Sy Simms is advocating consumers that know more about the products than the people selling them!

I think it's cool that the OP has an inquisitive mind and is asking the right questions. However ultimately material choice lies with the builder and sometimes people get into trouble thinking they know more about a material than a guy that works with it every day.

I'm just being devil's advocate.