and my shopping experience was that BullFrog wasn’t any more expensive than the other brands, and on the contrary they seemed middle of the road in pricing.

I owned a Phoenix Spa for 17 years prior and Id take the BullFrog spa over the Phoenix spa. Also, someone above mentioned warranties. And that was one of the bigger draws of BullFrog, they had a longer warranty than most. And my experience is a leak warranty is more important than a pump or motor warranty as those are easy fixes. But try finding a leak and resolving it mid winter. But any long warranty is a huge plus.