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>they are orbital sanders that operate correctly only 95% of the time. The other 5% of the time they do the wrong thing and cause you to do more work and/or damage the wood

So more of a home-gamer chainsaw? Except that I'm not positive the once/twice per year chainsaw is nearly so effective.

Power tools aren’t exactly the paragon of determinism. It’s ways to make mistakes with them, easy for wood to get caught the wrong way, relatively easy to injure yourself.

not a bad analogy imo. power tools vs hand tools. faster, but if you're not careful you can cause more damage before you notice. like a table saw, where you can cut too far or at an angle and the result will look bad. or an electric screwdriver, where you don't feel the torque as much, so it's easier to cross-thread.

and skills from building with hand tools help you judge the results, but not necessarily with actually using the tools.