I am not a professional mechanic or a millwright. I tend to run Craftsman, mainly for the warranty, which is in serious question these days. I don't find their rachets to be of great quality, but they are decent. I find the lever throw to be frequently annoying when you are in a hard to reach location, which seems to be always. Most of their sockets are excellent. Some of their boxed end wrenches are unusably bad, but that is a recent symptom of poor QC.
I like many/most of the basic older american manufacturers (proto, plumb, blackhawk, SK, KD) tools better than most of the current crop, and will pick them up used when I can. Although I am officially done with SK thin wall sockets as they are incredibly fragile or I am incredibly ham fisted. I don't tend to put much of a premium on the truck brand tools (Mac, Matco, SnapOn), becuase you pay a premium for their warranty and their warranty is a pain in the ass for me to use (and doubly so for you). I'm not chasing a fucking truck down to get a new screwdriver, I'm throwing the broken one in the corner and grabbing the next mostly worn out one and getting back to it. MAYBE I will gather up a handful and take it to Sears at some point, although that is no longer an option here. If I worked in a shop where the SnapOn guy showed up and I just handed off broken shit and he handed me new shit, I'd have a lot more SnapOn shit. I think Crescent pliers/dikes/wrenches are great (ok, good enough) for what they are but tend to shy away from their other stuff.
For a general garage hack, I'd say get yourself a decent set of Craftsman hand tools with 1/2, 3/8, and 1/4 drive sockets/rachets, metric and standard wrenches (like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Craftsman-270pc-Mechanics-3-Drawer-12133/dp/B0732NJSTV/ref=asc_df_B0732NJSTV/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309763890402&hvpos=1o6&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15268931103535226793&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9060447&hvtargid=pla-571578801518&psc=1 ). You can get a decent set for around $200. I think they are a little better than the Husky/Home Depot equivalent, but not much. If you have a "local" Home Depot and not a Sears, I'd just go husky and not tell anyone. Anyway, that size is small enough to be mobile and big enough to cover most needs. I have fixed an incredible amount of shit with mine and it has been abused to no end. Once you've got that, you can add or upgrade tools as you need. Nicer wrenches, or racheting wrenches, upgraded screwdrivers, etc. Toss an extra 1/4 and/or 3/8 drive in there, so you aren't always moving sockets around. After that, a smaller version of the same thing, that can live permanently in your truck is awfully handy.