Why would you carry the cheap gun and not the best (be it a Ravine or a Bear or the other way around) you can in defense of your life? It seems to me if your life or your loved one's life depended on it you would want the best tool to protect them in your holster that you could afford.
Hooray, another gatekeeping thread!
What does a bear down in a ravine have to do with this?
"Best" on it's own is simply a marketing word.
In this case, we're talking about a carry handgun. So, like the good engineer I am, you need to start with high level needs, get input from all the stake holders, create a set of validation tests, then distill the high level needs into requirements, then explore the solution space and come up with some suitable candidates, then create a trade study based on the requirements and subjective and objective evaluations, then do a sensitivity test to on the winner of that study to determine any possible need for correction...
...all in all, what's "best" for you isn't best for everyone.
Point 2: A handgun is the only thing I use to protect myself and family. Maybe I should put some of that money toward a safer car, or better locks, or insurance, or cameras, or a flashlights, or force on force training... the handgun is a tool, and only one tool.