I've kind of shifted my thinking on this kind of issue.
I was in a big-box sports retailer yesterday. As I'm browsing the golf balls looking for the supposed clearance of the Strata TL Tour, I noticed a sales associate that I know through basketball (and a little golf) talking to a guy about buying some clubs. This is not a pro shop, so none of the sets are more than $300 - which includes bag, sticks, and 3 free logo balls and a hat!
Needless to say, the clubfitter in me was very curious as to how the sales rep was going to go about selling these clubs. It wasn't a bad presentation - he 'fit' the fellow with a 5 iron, noted whether or not the club was too toe up or down, explained that it points to lengthening or shortening, etc. Now, obviously the sales rep knows a little bit about the importance of fitting (he's had his clubs "worked up" - his term, not mine).
Now, I believe that I've got the perfect system for beginners. It's a long-debated point about whether or not you buy clubs first and then take lessons, or whether you take lessons and then buy clubs. I've become dichotic on this one, embracing both sides. Either get a set built to TLT spec for you, and take lessons with them, OR, buy your conventional set, and
only use the club that you feel absolutely most comfortable with to groove and learn how to swing. (Then get the rest of the set built to TLT once your lessons are over).
Not everyone has the coin to get fitted clubs. Perhaps they just need cheap sticks to whack the ball around the course. In this case, I find outlets like gigagolf.com, pinemeadowgolf.com, and even the MCM brand from MyClubMaker.com suit these golfers just fine. If your goal is to go out and have a good time with your buddies, whack the ball around regardless of your score, then these are the perfect sticks for you. I wouldn't encourage you to spend any more money on your golf game than that. Make sure you're buying logo-overrun balls, cheap balls, balls you find in the gunch, etc... golf isn't about being good at this point. For these players, the cheapie set by an online fitter works just fine.
For the guy who isn't coming in with a "I'll try it and see if I like it" attitude, (kind of like myself - I realised I'll be doing golf-things because of business for a while, so I'd better get good at it), then to me a fitted set is a requirement, and off the rack clubs won't do. You may be able to buy some cheap clubs from an online retailer as referenced earlier in my post, and try to have your fitter/builder retrofit them, but if you want the highest quality, you need to buy a quality component head.
The issue with the pinemeadow, gigagolf and MCM branded stuff is that coming out of the foundry, the technical tolerances aren't that great. In other words, lofts, lies, and weights could be far from spec. All heads have tolerances, but cheaper heads have wider tolerances. This is what seperates quality components from cheap heads - the tolerances are tighter AND because the materials are better (again, tighter tolerances) it's easier to bring these heads back to spec for loft and lie, and even some designs make it easy to bring weight back to spec (with an internal weight port like Wishon designs).
IMO, under no circumstances should anyone be playing Nike, TaylorMade,
Callaway,
Titleist,
Mizuno, Cobra,
Ping,
Cleveland, Nickent or Srixon unless they're being paid to. Companies including SMT, Wishon, Eidolon, Alpha, Geek, Bang and even the SnakeEyes line from GolfSmith and Maltby/Toski lines from GolfWorks are every bit as well built as the names you recognize, but without the huge marketing budgets that we the golfer have to pay for. I guarantee that because you're playing Nike blades, you're not playing the same clubs as Tiger. You may be playing the same head design, you may even be playing the same shafts, and the grips look the same. But I'll promise you the headweights, swingweights, lengths, lofts, lies, and wraps of buildup aren't the same between your blades bought from the proshop or from tgw.com and Tiger's clubs hand-made by Tom Stites.
Find a good fitter who deals in quality components, and like the ING Direct guy says - "Save your money".