Hey man, I had a thought:
Do you have a guilty pleasure yoyo? One you either hated, wanted to hate, or didn’t want; yet grew to love playing with? Like when I bought my RecRev Octave 3, I could barely bind with it since it was my first high end throw, my first unresponsive throw, and it had a crucial groove bearing. I was no good with it, I would send it off axis constantly while doing tricks I knew that I could do, etc…
I can of course admit that all of that was my fault, and I knew it at the time, so it won’t be similar to your experience with your “guilty pleasure throw”, but it caused me to have a bad taste in my mouth for a few weeks. Fast forward after some raw knuckles, sports tape, and using every spare second of the day to throw, and I am proficient at using non responsive bearings, so I look at my collection and remember the Octave. I throw it and I wanted to believe it was junk, but it actually became one of my favorite feeling yoyos. Of course the bearing is loud, it’s spin time isn’t massively impressive, but mastering the throw I used to keep as a pretty face just made me all tingly.
That’s my story, just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.
Thanks