You will get nowhere fast if you insist on "K-Mart quality" anything.
"My Yugo is superior to your Lada" irrelevance.
And BFL, your decision to outwait the hype with lithium is wise. There is a hell of a lot of difference between a management system that costs $5,000 and another that costs a twentieth as much. I did not rate my "Circumnavigation" charging systems as such until several made it in style. Four years later. And zero failures.
From The Forever Battery to STP The Racer's Edge, to race driver endorsements of chlorine motor oil additives (let's not forget frying pan Teflon) the avalanche of hoodoo has been almost overwhelming.
But comparing Sow's Ear Silk Purses is a waste of time. To suggest that Lifeline competes with used Chinese AGM batteries is not rational. Nor is paying more than a hundred dollars for a garbage grade group 34 battery.