Spending $200 and $50 is a whole different story, you are taking it to an extreme when I mentioned a medium in between of spending a few extra bucks. Spending $50 on a corsair cx500 and spending $70 on a better power supply with decent components sounds reasonable.
Someone doing it different than me has nothing to do with "doing it wrong". Antminer have limited warranty, people live in different conditions. If you have issues with your power supply 4months down the road you will wish you had spent $20 more. Anyone who appreciates hardware knows the one thing you don't do is cheap out on the power supply.
CX500 is $30 AR not $50. I've bought those and would buy again if I needed a good cheap small PSU. Just like I'd buy EVGA 1300 again if I needed a good cheap powerful PSU. I don't know what Antminer warranty has to do with anything, or living conditions.
"Doing it wrong" are your words not mine. See, I don't tell how you should run things, but you seem to be so worried that others are doing it not according to your rules that you resort to calling them "dumb" etc. I will not wish I had spent $20 more, or $40 more as the case might be. I will be happy that I can afford a spare and zero downtime rather than losing revenue while RMAing a "high quality" PSU (yes, those break too). To each their own.
You mean the part after they take my legitimate concern of something they should research and insult with sarcastic comments? Yes, if I am telling someone they should look into what they buy instead of saying "its good" because you plug it in and it works, then so be it. There is no point of arguing the quality of a CX500 because it's been done and proven.
Mail in rebate is a rebate. You pay $50 today so regardless of the time you wait to receive it does not change the fact $50 left your wallet today.
Living conditions has much to do with this. If you have 115 F ambient your components run at different temperatures then someone in Alaska. I doubt you will want to cheap out on a power supply that has components that are cheaper and rated for less temperature