I've decided that I'd like a work stand for basic maintenance and washing. While I know the HC way, I'd really like to not spend much on this. Are there good <$100 stands or do I just need to bite the bullet and get a Park Tools stand?
Nate isn't punishing you. We really delete very few threads here. Yours isn't close to meriting deletion.
My advice, probably worth about what your are paying for it, is to just forget about this and move on. Everybody else will.