Absolutely agreed on the necessity of a good knife, but I also think one is more likely to cut oneself with a bad one.

(Recently I was preparing food at someone else's house and said to the person who'd stepped in to help, "be very careful with that knife -- it's not very sharp." We laughed because it sounded funny, but it's totally true.)

Also, while I'm not saying everybody needs to have one, I am amazingly happy with my VitaMix. Yes, it costs a lot more than a regular blender, but it's really way beyond a blender and I can do things I couldn't even *think* about doing before.