I've used the Hitachi, Kik, Leader & Philips in service and design and they're all good scopes. Never liked Philips much, or B&K. What I did see was that the Japanese scopes would eventually fail and be unrepairable for various reasons, whereas the small Tek 5xxx series usually kept on ticking. It seemed like each year of the other scopes needed some subtle revision of circuit board and after a couple years parts and boards were unavailable. CRTs and power supplies failed more often. That said, I wouldn't hesitate to use any of 'em, especially if I could get a parts unit to stash away. As said above, the high gain plug-ins for the Teks can be very useful, so I'd try for a 5xxx or 7xxx mainframe as a first choice. For my daily user I have to admit, I still like the old boat anchor Tek 545B, even though I have other much faster scopes to use when needed.