Yeah, I'm sure that there's a guy somewhere that traded a Ruger P95 for a Hi Point C9 and feels like he's a king, yeah, we get it... but in the real world, we all know the guy got screwed. There's perception and reality... the guy with the Crap Point will figure out he basically got nothing for his gun, might take him awhile, though. And yes, every trade isn't nearly that horrible, but a lot of them are, it's just that the guy on the shitty end of the trade lacks the objectivity to see that he's getting screwed.
When smart people trade something this is probably the case. They don't settle for crap and they only trade for guns that are actually worth something.
Still, I just find the whole thing inefficient and the process contains pressures that aren't present in a normal transaction. I'd rather just turn the gun into cash and then use the cash to buy something else.
Then again I'm probably jaded because I'm not interested in as many guns as some are. I used to impulse buy and be interested in the same kind of random crap that lots of other shooters buy. It took me like 10 years but I figured out this is a huge waste of money and the interest level in these one off/impulse buy guns fades quickly. At this point I go into a typical gun store and 75% of the inventory, in my eyes, is like cans of "hospital beige" paint. I don't impulse buy anymore either, or hardly ever, unless it's a gun that happens to be on my list, which could probably fit on less than 3 index cards.
-Mike