Have skills will travel.
It's an important factor, though. Always has been. Part of the
game in most contests.
I agree with that. One can take a $200 station or even a $1,000 station
into the contests and have some fun with it but it won't be a
competitive station by a long shot *if* the frame of reference is a
decent score in the DX contests. A decent score in SS at the
section
level with a budget station is another story altogether.
"Pick the fights you can win", as a wise man once wrote.