just a few points:
whether or not the ape vape is created from pre existing parts, it works better than the Volatizer based on the handful of times that I have used both. to me, that is more important than whether or not something was built from scratch. Yes, the VHW is merely a soldering iron with a glass heater cover, but the genius itself is in the heater cover and why i prefer my vhw over the herbo.
Nosmoke, the air path actually touches the stainless steel with the Herbo. Asides from the gong connection, the biggest difference is how the air enters and exits their respective heating element. The airpath for the herbo is straight thru and depending how fast you pull, it can drastically affect the density of your vapor. The vhw has the air swirling before exiting which results in much more consistent heat.
last point of mine is that vaporizer are like cars. All of them can get you from point a to point b. If you just want to get intoxicated, the selection of vaporizer is plentiful. If you care about taste, experience, etc etc, to me, a glass encapsulated heating element cannot be beat. I can definitely tasted a difference between the herbo, ssv, and vhw so for me, I need something like the VHW to be fully satisfied. If you don't notice a taste difference, then you can use a purple days, ssv, herbo, etc etc
to close this out, i have never used a light bulb/halogen style vaporizer that worked well. I don't think they respond to temp change well and you have to use a very particular breathing style for half way decent vapes.