Is Cheap Worth It?

So we have all heard of the infamous 'good, fast, or cheap' triangle. But at what point does cheap become to cheap?

Last fall we were in desperate need of new projectors. The two proxima projectors in our main worship center were just passing 6 years of age, which as most of you know is pushing it for 'gen 1' LCD technology. At the time I had recently been hired as TD, and did not know quite where to turn considering that I had a non-existent budget to work with. I went to talk to our head of IT who has been at the company for more than 8 years and is well known and respected, in hopes of getting a little advice. We called a company out in Oklahoma that we have worked with in the past who informed us of a wonderful sale they were having. The sale was this: two Panasonic PTD-7500U projectors for just under 24,000 dollars. Way too good to be true right? Well in our haste to replace our rapidly dieing projectors, we jumped on it. Can anyone guess why I am just blogging about this now? If you guessed that its because both projectors are failing then you deserve a gold star. Here we are just a year later, with both projectors failing in different ways, only to find that they are out of warranty. After several phone calls, I managed to figure out why we got such a great deal. We had been sold "b-stock" projectors that were just over 6 years old, and had originally been purchased as demo units by the company that sold them to us. The next step of course was to call our genius executive pastor to mediate. But with fall kickoff closing in, time is a luxury we don't have. If all goes well, we will get the company that sold them to us to honor their original 'as new' sales agreement, and time will be my only enemy.

But the question remains, was it worth it? it was the right deal at the right time, but is it worth the pain now, just a year later? I am honestly struggling with this because I don't know what to think. How do you know what deals are good an what deals are bad? I would really rather not be know around the office as the one who "always goes with the most expensive option.". My proposals usually are a little on the expensive side because I play it safe, I go with the parts and sources that are proven, and I know wont let me down. But will I ever get the chance to prove my methods if I keep getting passed over for the cheaper option? I hate being the one that's always there saying "I told you so" but what else do you do?

ADDED:

For clarification: This is NOT a stab at the leadership of my current employer. Due to circumstances beyond any ones control, we had but one option and we took it. We were blessed to be able to get what we did, because otherwise we would still be stuck with those old proxima projectors. I am pleased with the way that the situation was handled and everything has worked out OK.

FOLLOW UP:

Both projectors we shipped off to be repaired by Panasonic not too long ago, and have now returned in perfect working order! The only cost to us was shipping to the repair facility. The real blessing in all of this was that both projectors were damaged far more than we had realized, and Panasonic repaired them both anyway. So now the only problem is that they are only 5000 lumen projectors. Other than that they look great!