Officially Stanley Black & Decker owns the Craftsman brand now and have gone full swing on promoting a once respected brand in other venues, though there's still some presence in the remaining Sears stores. Like your experience the tool owning world is going through some "sorting out" on how the "lifetime" warrantee thing is going to play out. There have been conflicting reports about how it's done, one person gets a replacement in one location another isn't able to repeat an identical outcome in another. SBD has aligned with Lowes to be their largest marketer in the brick and mortar world and even there the replacement thing is spotty. It appears it's up to individual store managers to approve replacements of older Craftsman stuff, though the official Lowes policy speaks in a bit of mumbo jumbo that sounds like they are more likely to say no than yes. If there's any good news in all of the changes it's that SBD appears to be more interested in selling higher quality tools than Sears did in their waning years of ownership of the brand. There are even some genuine Made in USA tools for those who believe that is a positive difference.