Overthinking again, eh? [laughing] Thanks for the reality check, hollysprings and dseng. Wonder who buys the $90 stainless ones, then. (The chrome ones are REALLY shiny...) Probably I am worrying about everything because our normally-dependable handyman has left all his tools here and disappeared. I am worried about him more than the kitchen at this point.

Gamegrrl, that's a great price and I like Overstock. If you want accessories, you might consider calling the Galaxy Tool people and just seeing what they can do. I called with a question about a sink, and they offered me a slew of free accessories (two air switches that I wanted, and a colander I saw online). Plus they offered to discount the price by $9 if I declined the sink flange. It might not beat that great Overstock price, but it might be worth a call.

Thanks for the tip. Yes, I will be having a disposal; I didn't know I would need a different type. I am trying to avoid buying one, having to return it because it isn't compatible, etc. I will make sure that whatever drain I get says something about disposal-ready, I guess...

The cleaning issue on the mesh strainers may also come back around to the disposal issue...we don't have one, so running water over the strainer to rinse it doesn't work in our case (though I've been known to do it in a pinch if it's sauce or something that really isn't shake-off-able). I can definitely see that any strainer cleaning would be much easier with a disposal (but then you probably wouldn't need a strainer as much?) Don't know about the Duostrainer fitting other sinks, though it's promising that it worked with buehl's. Our setup is all Kohler, mostly b/c I read some reports of people having issues using other drains on the Kohler cast iron sinks, and figured if I was getting the Kohler drain I should just get the whole shebang...got grief from my husband about this for the cost (I had no idea what that stuff was supposed to cost, and it wasn't crazy expensive---maybe $100 for the drain/strainer/p-trap/cutting board, on top of $300 for the sink?---but I gather you can get drains and pipes at the hardware store for far less). Our plumber laughed at me and said basically no one buys the Kohler parts other than the sink, but he was then quite impressed by the quality of the parts when he got them out to install (apparently we have the nicest P-trap around, who knew), so I didn't feel too badly about it! As a system the drain + strainer works beautifully but don't know how it would work with other sinks.