In the pattern market, there is good, there is crap, there is stuff in the middle.
Compare a genuine GM air filter to a Halfords air filter, and anyone can visibly see the difference. Granted, the Halfords one was about 50p cheaper than the GM trade club one, but that was more than negated in fuel to pick it up.
What Nick W fails to accept is there are times when GM is better, there are times when pattern is better, and there are times when they are so similar (or it doesn't really matter), and you buy on cost/convenience only. Brake pads are a prime example of where GM are better - if you want a cheap, sub £20 set of front pads, you'd be soft in the head to chose anything else than GM, as they are far superior to anything sub £60-70. Exhausts are an example of where pattern is better than GM.
As a club, we are uniquely placed to know what works where.
As for poor laney101, Courtney are a bit like Mercedes Benz. They lost any ability to design anything years ago, and shift stuff using no longer working ideas from the 80s to unsuspecting punters.