KCDW
It would appear to me that in suggesting somebody buys the cheapest GPS is the worst of the possible options.
They don't have aviation databases. One of the great anti-gross-error features of a GPS is the ability to construct the entire journey from items within its database. These would be airfields, VORs, NDBs, even airway intersections.
I strongly suspect that the majority of cases where people got into a total mess with a GPS (e.g. ended up 20 miles off and in the middle of CAS) were the result of entering user waypoints, and getting them wrong. And perhaps using a GPS from a camping shop; one which doesn't show the flight plan as a whole. With a moving-map GPS one can display the whole flight plan and that provides a good error check but if there is no moving map then ....
Strafer
There seems to be a two camps here who are convinced that one side are Luddites who only advocate "WW1" flying and another who think the other side can't tell where they are unless Mr Garmin tells them.
It looks like you are generalising almost as much as I do
Not at all - to a PPL flying VFR I would suggest using a GPS CONCURRENTLY with map reading and the plog. It's a very easy process. The plog then doesn't really need to have wind in it (because the GPS shows your drift clearly) and that in turn eliminates any need for using the slide rule for anything at all. Controversial? Of course.