Wow, I was here just over an hour ago and then come back and the thread just blew up. I understand your pessimistic view ozzy, I do. But you have certainly made it known in a number of posts - your questioning of grannyring's integrity, as waltersalas said, is uncalled for (I don't know walter at all, just agree with his statement). It would be better that you take this to IM if you still feel strongly about it. BTW, I've read many of your comments over the years and they were useful, please return to that type of commentary. Let's keep it cordial and I thank all for that.
In terms of cost, there are two Hijiri lines and your comments are directed towards the upper line. The Millions line Takumi is around $5,300 for 1.5M power cord but the Performance line Nagomi is around $1,350 for 1.0M power cord. Two or three people have mentioned that getting money back was not a problem and I have no reason to doubt that. At this point you could try calling Colin @ gestalt and see if you are comfortable doing a trial. It does seem that you are quite interested by what you've read here. BTW, I don't know Colin at all, just know his name because of several here in this thread. I do think that I'll be giving him a call sometime in the future because it seems that Hijiri is what I'm looking for.