Personally, I don't think there is any one brand of the equipment that is clearly superior to all others. Most major manufacturers these days all make very good equipment. However, I will also say that there are individual pieces of dive equipment from some manufacturers that are overpriced for what you get. Again, just my opinion and I'll just leave it at that.
So the question is, how do you choose? For me, a good portion of my base scuba kit is Sherwood. The reason for that is that my LDS does a large volume of his business with Sherwood and has a very close working relationship with them. Even being a very small shop, he's consistently one of the top 5 Sherwood dealers in the Southeast. Anyway, because of that, he gets some very good deals on Sherwood equipment, particularly on packages. Hence the reason my base scuba kit is primarily Sherwood. And, I even got to test Sherwood's new Sage computer several months before it hit the market. If my LDS had a close working relationship with Scuba Pro, Mares, or Oceanic, my kit would probably be from one of those instead.
If you're going to buy primarily on-line, it doesn't really matter what brand you pick. And, while you may get slightly better prices on-line, you may encounter problems when you start looking for someone to service your equipment. To me, that's the primary reason for finding a good LDS and buying your base scuba kit from them (again, whatever manufacturer they have a close relationship with).
Regardless of what brand you pick or whether you buy on-line or from a LDS, it's going to be most cost-effective to buy your basic scuba kit as a package. Beyond that, I have no preference or brand loyalty. In fact, my list of accessories looks like it could have come from 20 different yard sales.
Hope this helps.
