On Wednesday, March 23, 2016 at 10:31:07 AM UTC-4, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Tue, 22 Mar 2016 12:12:10 -0400, Bill Baxter
wrote:

I can't say my first experience had such a positive outcome. When I was
about 8 years old, I received a "focal" refractor for Christmas. I don't
remember what size it was, but it was attached to a mini tripod. My
father and I rode out into the country to try and look at Saturn with
it. Not only could we never find Saturn, but nothing else either. My
thinking, in retrospect, was that the reason was probably because it was
advertised as like a "300x telescope" and the FOV not only horribly
small, but the cheap plastic would have never allowed us to see
anything. Needless to say, because my dad had kept the receipt, he
packed up the scope and returned it. I never touched optics again until
like age 12.

That's pretty similar to my own experience. I got a Tasco refractor,
probably around 2.5 inches on an altaz tripod. I saw Saturn well
enough, and spent a little time on the Moon, but it was pretty useless
for anything else. The lowest magnification was too high, and the
tripod was too shaky. Gave up on it after a few months and didn't
revisit visual astronomy again until my teens, when I got a 6" Newt
that had been damaged in a fire and which I rebuilt. I used that scope
for a long time.

Then you would have to agree that telescopes sold by department stores (your altaz Tasco, for example) are great! Any problems with your Tasco were largely due to pilot error, user ignorance or lack of interest. Do not argue with that.