Nerf have never failed to deliver on quality, durability or sheer honest to goodness fun. My sons who started playing with nerf products when they were 8 or so are now 14 and 16 and still buying them with their own money and we frequently have silly pitched foam dart battles raging through the house. When my babies first arrived i promised that they would never ever have war toys and i'd never use bribery to make them do things. Yeah right. They made guns out of twigs, lego, toy cars a toy kitchen whisk and if I remember rightly the toy drill from a plastic tool set immediately took up residence in a sock on son number two's belt as a ray gun in a holster. Its like King Canute holding back the tide. Aint never gonna happen so Nerf guns made a good compromise. The
boys haven't developed an obsession with real weapons, they use up loads of energy, do no damage to anyone and this allows them to play the inevitable war games without the frighteningly realistic piles of bodies in computer games.
So when we were looking for a christmas present for a freind's 11 year old nerf was the first place I looked and when he opened the package his eyes lit up, he grinned and said "I am going to have SO much fun with this." and he has and now ALL his freinds (and his dad) want one too!