I used to roll my eyes at change order fees. Thought it made me look greedy and scared off the small clients. Then I had the same thing happen, a $1,800 branding job that turned into three months of "just one more tweak" and I did the math and wanted to cry. What changed my mind was how you frame it. You tell them up front in the contract that the quote covers two rounds of changes, and after that it's an hourly rate. Say it flat and friendly at the start, not when things go bad. Now when a client asks for round five I just point at the paper and say sure, this one's at my rate, and nobody fights because it was never a surprise.

Oh man, that REI guy wasn't totally wrong but the material thing is backwards, aluminum is actually the softer metal and steel is what holds up better in rocky ground. The length matters too though, 8 inch gives you way more bite so it's not just the steel doing the work. Glad you didn't snap another one either way, mid-storm stake fails are the worst.