Harbor Freight tools remains questionable. The tests I've seen do sometimes show that some of the Hurcules tools have more power than the competition and some fall short. The issue I have is not the HP, but rather, the battery quality and availability. I would be beyond surprised if, when opening up any Harbor Freight tool battery, we find the specific high cycle capable Sanyo 18650's/2170's, like you do with Dewalt or Milwaukee. Dewalt sells you 10 year cells. Many others do not.
You forgot to mention the price. While I have used Hercules and Bauer tools on a professional basis, and I'm pretty sure they don't have the hottest new battery technology, the do have good battery tech. They last quite long indeed and the new brushless drills are as good as it gets. Remember the cost of those Milwaukee batteries. I like Milwaukee and their batteries are great, but I can get by, probably cheaper, with some other brands. We do a lot of drilling through brick and block and to be honest, we use a corded Hilti for that. Everything else is quite a bit less strenuous on drills and more often than not we use 12v Makitas. If HF makes a brushless 12v drill and driver, I'll try them out.