I guess it is all about perspective. I buy tools that will have an absolute impact. For instance, I might buy a new barbell. That tool, though pricey, will continue to give me long term growth so long as I use it. If I would like to get a different type of bar, a SSB let's say, because it is the last bar I purchased, then again, it is money well spent. It doesn't do crap if I do nothing, and I am not trying to take a short cut by purchasing one. I can't place blame or faith in the bar. If it fails, I have failed. Not because I'm a hard gainer or any other excuse, if it fails to deliver, I failed to work it hard enough. Supplements are, even if "proven" still this strange belief that a non-FDA evaluated or supported powder can make you skinny, can make you muscular, can improve your endurance. There are medications out there that will absolutely do these things. But they go WAY beyond "supplement" in nature.

I bag on creatine as worthless, and yet of everything out there I would say this has the most legit claim to having some actual helping quality. Still, in being "legit" it is still such a small player on the grand scheme of human performance.

I suppose that most of my animosity comes from supplement companies cranking out staggering quantities of "new" supplements that have no value. Now, if the supplement industry stopped being able to sell snake oil, and MAYBE conducted some real research, and I'm not talking about some stupid single blind study with ten people, which has NO statistical value at all, ever, in any existence... then MAYBE you would get some real science applied to the industry, and they might have to work to put out a product that delivers results. As it stands, any money spent playing is money wasted... and supports an industry that is allowed to get off scott free because their customers are willing to ingest anything that doesn't kill them.

It is a problem, and supporting indescriminate playing simply allows that problem to continue.