Quote Originally Posted by gremlin078 View Post
I wear 5.11 pants, either long or shorts every day as part of my "work" uniform. My experience with them has been very favorable since the early days of Royal Robbins climbing pants where they originated and were later bought by 5.11. They are usually well made, sturdy and resist stains to a remarkable degree.
That's exactly my experience with 5.11 - well made, very comfortable, and as rugged as one might reasonably expect. I may be wrong, but I'm expecting pretty good quality in the TDK, in part because this is not a regular product for 5.11. They "launched" the TDK as an April Fool's joke, and only decided to actually offer the product because of the high level of response that they received. By the point where they decided that they needed to produce the product to keep a lot of customers from being unhappy, they'd already announced a price and would have created a lot of irritation if they tried to raise it. Thus, I suspect that the TDK is being sold at or very near the cost of production, as a way to keep customers happy and as a marketing / PR program, rather than as a product that 5.11 expects to make money from.