I am completely satisfied with the design and overall quality of the tool.My only gripe occurred when I attempted to open the package. Lisle places a drop of hot glue to the cardboard packaging to hold the tool in place while it is covered with shrink wrap. This would be ok if they used a small drop of glue instead of the giant blob the size of a quarter. After opening the package this giant glue blob ripped a large piece of the cardboard packaging with it that was super difficult to remove. I even shaved the sucker down with a razor knife before applying the solvent. The glue was some high quality stuff that was not easy to remove. I only wish I could find some glue this tough for my glue gun. It took me over one hour and quite a bit of Goo-Gone to rub it out enough to make the tool usable. New products should work as advertised straight out of the package without requiring an hour of rubbing and cleaning -- not to mention that Goo-Gone is not cheap! Simple aggravation is my only reason for knocking it down one star. My wife said that she has never seen me waste that much tool time on something that doesn't cost 10 minutes of billing time. I guess it is not in me to cut my losses and toss a brand new item in the trash when I should.The bristles are of a good quality that should last as long as reasonable force is applied when cleaning. Mechanics that jam these on either end without a little finesse are the cause of premature distorted bristles in my opinion. I don't think it is the tools fault. The bristles on the male end have a very slight distortion after the first use but nothing major that I don't experience on every other one I have ever used. As noted by other recent reviewers the male bristles are brass instead of stainless. I have both styles and think that both have advantages but am leaning towards the brass style since it looks better in a side to side comparison. I will buy again but do hope Lisle fixes the glue blob problem and I most likely will buy from a brick and mortar store so I can nake sure they're packaging robot didn't go nuts with the glue before I walk out of the store. I know Amazon has an excellent return service but personnally I hate to mail things back if I can possibly avoid it. It is time spent and that means lost money to me.Update: the glue mess that I experienced may have been an isolated incident as I have looked at a dozen or so hanging at local auto parts stores and they all had a very small drop of glue that didn't look anywhere near what I had to deal with. Note to Lisle if you reads these reviews -- find a way to package these tools without the need to glue them to the packaging since frustration free consumer packaging is both a current trend and you could save time and production costs to boot. Consider using a small piece of double sided tape instead. The kind with post-it note adhesive that doesn't make a mess and is easier for the customer to remove.