Lowe's has better wood than home Depot around me, I have to dig through a whole bundle just to get 20 2x4s that are straight where at Lowe's I can normally get 20 from the first 22 I grab. I'll gladly pay an extra 25 cents a board to not spend all damn day there. I find customer service sucks at both in their own way and they normally have under qualified people answering questions. I will say atleast home Depot sells many tools cheaper than amazon though. My go to for power tools is Milwaukee, which Lowe's doesn't even sell.
Ok I'm done ranting.
Dimmer regularly checked can be safer than a thermostat left unchecked. Many factors can go into this debate, You can't really make a blanket statement like that, some dimmers, just because of the way they are built, can't fail on at all. However I do believe a top tier thermostat is much safer, but it doesn't make a dimmer unacceptable.