The same thing is true with just about any big corporation. Chrysler bought out Ferrari, yet Ferraris are still the king of sports cars, and are also the fastest production cars made anywhere.. Most TV sets are made in Mexico, China, Japan, and Indonesia, yet people still buy them, often thinking that they are still American made by the original companies.. So many original corporations merged, sold out, or crashed from skyrocket corporate taxes (especially when Bill Clinton was in office) and many American corporations have been bought and sold or traded since that time. It's just a big turnover of different people and different owners and corporations using the same plans or inventing new ones using new engineers, oftentimes by foreigners, and especially from Nepal and India.
At one time Bounty Hunter was the best thing anybody could buy. Their Red Barons blew everything clear out of the ball parks. NOBODY could touch them for all-metal depth. First Texas bought Bounty Hunter and they also own US Bankcorp, a financial institution, among other things, and Texas Growth Fund too. They don't give a rip about "company names", they only do what's in the best interest of their corporation.. Now they own Fisher metal detector company too. Firestone now owns Bridgestone Tire Company, and Cooper Tire company doesn't make their tires at all, they get the pieces and parts from other tire manufacturers and assemble them in various parts of the asian world.
There is no magical formula, nor is their anything that indicates one brand of detector will be better than another that a corporation is in control of, or farm out (which is what MOST metal detector mfgs do, including White's, Bounty Hunter, Tesoro, Garrett, Minelab, and others).
First Texas is just a big corporation, not a metal detector company. Fiat makes airplanes, busses, cars, trucks, kitchen appliances, furniture, medical equipment, etc. They don't just make crappy little cars. And they aren't just owned by Fiat either. And yes, for many years Fiat owned Ferrari AND Lamborghini too. Bounty hunter, White's, Minelab, etc? They are just names, nothing more, and that will all change too. Like one old man once said about the newest metal detectors; "they don't make 'em much better, they just make 'em much different".