Handbags   (The sad, the bad and the ugly. Non-productive stuff here.)

I don't think I have ever found a good toaster.

I bought one of those expensive 'Dualit' machines.

one of these

After some years, when an element had gone , I got replacement element, but upon opening up the toaster, the innards were so corroded, that I set the machine aside pending the time to do a major re-firb job on it.

Then for 99p on ebay, I acquired a strange toaster.
A Swiss machine, labelled FUST PRIMOTECQ: apparently they are expensive, and this one was like new.

One of These

At first, it was a belter: really fast, and the heaters are of the ceramic tubular type, as seen on electric radiant room heaters.

The downside, is that such a heater is a concentrated heat source, relying on reflector to heat the required target: fine when it is new, and the reflector is highly polished, but can find no convenient way of keeping them in such a state in service in the toaster. So now it toasts a band across an otherwise untoasted slice, and I am again in the market for a toaster.