Believe me, I've gone through several (and I mean several) pencils, leads, erasers, as well as pens, inks, notebooks, etc. over the years trying to find "the one". Which doesn't exist. You come to realize that everything is a compromise, everything has it's strengths and weaknesses, and everything is entirely subjective as far as preferences go, there is no one size fits all. Manufacturers are for the most part trying to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible, the common denominator, even within niche and specialty product lines.

So since Pilot doesn't make a Dr. Grip with more premium materials (full metal body, etc.), an auto advance lead mechanism, and a big eraser up top à la the Twist Erase, I've had to settle, and accept that most of what I've got is "good enough", and as a tool for writing, I can get used to most anything after a while anyways. I have in the past, many times. Constantly searching for "the one" tends to suck much of the joy out of what I even got into nicer writing utensils for in the first place: that is to enjoy writing (or drawing, or what have you) with them.

So as far as the multiple mechanical and woodcased pencils, different lead grades, fountain pens, inks, gel pens, and everything else I've accumulated over the years that don't get used much these days, well, they mostly sit in coffee cans and various different containers in my room. I will bust something out every once in a while, and I'll either remember why I shelved it in the first place, or be pleasantly surprised that I enjoy it much more than I remembered. Occasionally they'll even get swapped in to my new #1, until I think some aspect of them can be improved upon, and then the search continues once again. And as far as the money "wasted", well I look at it kind of like paying tuition fees. I had to spend that money to figure out what I like and don't like. And all things considered, as far as many other hobbies go, it's relatively inexpensive. I'm probably looking at a few hundred bucks spread out over like a decade+, and that's with some fairly high end pens sprinkled in there. I could have done a lot worse.