> What other tools have you spent a little extra on to get quality, if you don't mind me asking

At this point, pretty much everything. It's on my on-going todo list to write an article for my site about it since I added a cooking section awhile back. I found a community that's apparently been around a long time in Chowhound and that exposed me to a lot of the details, and I bought some representative cheaper items to experiment with and I learned a lot. Among other things I learned why gas is better than electric for a stovetop and the shortcomings of induction electric burners, which I had previously thought were marvelous. During the course of 2020 I really took cooking seriously and decided to go all-out, enrolled in online culinary school in my free time and learned how to do all the things I had previously neglected. I'm not a pro cook, this is just for at home, but with new techniques and new understanding of what is available it became really obvious what the shortcomings of my tools were and where it was making certain recipes I wanted to try impossible or massively more difficult.

The short version of what I would probably write is that your priority order for paying for quality should be pretty much:

1. Knives

2. Cookware

3. Ovenware

4. Anything else that is exposed to heat

5. Everything else

The most interesting thing I discovered though is that quality is more about materials and construction than price, and a lot of the best stuff is actually really affordable if you buy through restaurant supply houses instead of on Amazon or similar. Additionally, many of the best quality products aren't sold in the US for odd reasons, especially in Cookware, or at least are hard to come by. Personally I ended up with a pretty eclectic collection of cookware because cookware sets might get you where you need to go, but are never going to be optimal for each item.

For instance I found that for doing a lot of stocks and soups, a disc-bottom stock pot (Fessler is my preferred brand there) was significant better than other options because it made heat control easier to prevent burning the soup and made it heat so evenly it didn't require constant stirring. But by the same token when I wanted a good saucepan, clad stainless steel is better than all other options, and for a skillet it's hard to beat single-piece construction carbon steel or cast iron, although the 7-layer clad stuff is close. For a dutch oven nothing beats enameled cast iron. In my opinion for disc-bottoms, Fessler is the good stuff, for clad it's All-Clad or Demeyere, for cast iron it should be Field or Lodge, for enameled cast iron it should be La Creuset or Staub, and for carbon steel I'm a huge fan of Solidteknics.

Unfortunately, no cookware set is going to be this exact, so it's better to buy one piece at a time and focus on the most essential and most used pieces. I think everybody should have a really high quality 2 qt saucier or saucepan, a good skillet, and a dutch oven, and a stock pot. You can get everything else over time if you find you need it.

Knives are kind of similar, don't buy a set, buy individual knives. Everybody could honestly get by with just two good knives if they take care of them, a chef's knife or gyuko of some kind and some kind of paring or utility/petty knife. With knives there's a lot to learn but some of the good starters are really reasonably priced and are honestly good enough you may be fine with them for the rest of your life. You really can't go wrong with Tojiro VG10 knives if you want stainless steel or the Dao Vu knives if you want carbon steel and are okay taking care of it. Both are very reasonable, like under $100 for a knife (typical high-end knives are > $300). There's certainly reasons to buy something more, but honestly these are what I use as "daily beaters" in my kitchen and I only have one more expensive knife and while it's fantastic, I use the Tojiro just as much if not more. What I definitely recommend against is buying expensive sets you find at Williams-Sonoma or whatever, because they're very much not worth what you paid for them, even if they're decent.

In any case, once you buy quality stuff you really do need to take care of it properly. I have a calendar reminder once a month on a Saturday to do "kitchen maintenance" which is when I do things like treat my Boos cutting board with mineral oil and wax, oven season the carbon steel and cast iron pans, and deep clean all the clad stainless steel stuff with barkeeper's friend or white vinegar, and sharpen my knives, among other things. Other than that, day to day, you should do research on how to take care of things. Cast iron isn't really as finnicky as people make it out to be, for instance, and if you take care of it properly it's really amazing to cook with, knives are easy to care for properly as well. For the most part the main thing is most of the quality stuff is intended to be hand washed, not go in a dishwasher, or if it's dishwasher safe you should still rinse and wipe it dry afterwards to ensure it doesn't leave any caustic residues from the dishwasher.

The long version of this is something I'll write some day maybe.