I was taught calipers for close mics for precision. My cheap calipers get me just as close as Mit. do. And every machinist I know uses there calipers to scribe lines in dykem.
???????NASA engineers shooting for the moon with a 40-50 yr old lathe/mill!!
For ordinary work, I have a couple hermaphrodite scribe/calipers, both old Starrett, but they are in the tool box and my HF calipers are in my hand or on the bench. The Starrett scribe/calipers each cost someone more new than my HF calipers cost me new. Let me think on that for a nanosecond... If I was doing higher tolerance layout work on the surface plate, then no doubt my decision might well be different. Like I said above, I do not use my good calipers to scribe, or for anything else...i used to use my cheap dial calipers to scribe lines all the time, until i finally got a hermaphrodite scribe.
i don't use good dial calipers to do any scribing
I don't scribe lines with my micrometers, not even the cheap ones