The good news is that you will some be an expert yourself as you see and use and share.

For my money, there are two places to shop: big retailers of long and respected quality and customer service [examples are REI and Cabela's], and boutique retailers who have specialty world-beating, better-mouse-trap products [examples are UST, ACR, and AMR].

About the former, there will be relatively wide agreement which you can detect by reading here and other survival / outdoor fora like ETS. About the latter, debate will rage [and as new products and retailers emerge things will change so will opinions] - detecting these requires personal experience and watching the opinions of those you trust on fora like ETS.