I might have mentioned it, but I only recently bought a fan. Keep in mind that last summer my town was without power in the daylight hours, so any percieved extream slowness in this case, was only normal Scott slowness.
My little box of joy cost 100dh, I should have bargined more but standing in the hardware store the idea of a fan for such small amount of money seemed reasonable. If a the quality of a price can be found by compairing the overall pleasure and utility of a product, weighted against the amount paid, then I think I got a very good deal. Those guys were suckers.
Tempering this, I can not claim to be an expert on fan technology. I have in my life owned one fan that I felt was "a really good fan". All others have been pretty much the same with minor variations. The product currently winding my feet is in the second class. It is on the small side, and has few visable studry metal parts. If I was to carry this fan onto an airplane, I feel confident it would breeze though security. My coke bottle and Tevas would get more scrutiny.
It is a 2foot square box. White in color, with odd gray aerodynamic trim on the top. The grill is also gray. It has three speeds, and a two hour timer. A simple need, simple fan.
As mentioned I do not stay current with advances in fan design. Many fans sold here strangely feature a rotating grill. This is so absuredly useless and cosmetic that it can only have been created by Americans looking for a way to sexy up an otherwise normal household appliance with a feature I neither need nor want, the camreraphoning of the world. My fan has a switch to turn the movements of the grill on and off. Gnomes within seem to dictate if the grill will rotate clock or counter wise. My friend a few hours away has a fan with 4 seperate moving circular grills arranged in a confusing square. But, Im not the Mr. Fancy Pants he is. In theory, these moving grills should create a "spin" to the air current pushing it further without dying out. Same prinple behind throwing footballs in a tight Sunday afternoon spiral, and putting grooves in gunbarrles. In reality, it does nothing except provide a little visual distraction. I keep the switch turned on.
A common conversation I have is to compaire the current weather with weather in the United States. I try to explain that while Kansas does not have the same heat that we have, there are places, like Arizona, that are similar. It is hard to summerize a place like America and people here are unsure exactly what is American weather. They are however confident that European weather is a lot cooler. Thus, my fans name is "Europa". If the economic success of France and Spain can not be equaled right here at home, at least some of the comfort of the climate might be.
Not to be overlooked is the tranquile element of fan sound. I read a piece of writing influenced by Eastern philosophy few years ago about the beauty of silence. The author said he did not play music as background noise, that there was entirely to much of that in this world and to appriciate silence (with natures orchestra) was a good thing. Unluckaly, this chop souy (American muddle with faux-Eastern flaver) made a small impression on me. Before, I felt some conflict about turning on a noise machine, as if silance was a comlicated and intricate sand drawing and my stero was blowing it all away. But, Ive learned it is easy to get silance back, simply turn off your noise. It can be appriciated then. My time here has me wondering about the wisdom of the author. His ideas are better suited to a different world. The first world. The smooth purring whiring sounds like everything is all right in the world. I wonder if those same geniously of marketing that worked out the grill could help design extra calming sounds for the fan. Certainly not all are the same. Some must be more relaxing, more tranqual than others. This would put a fan in the first catagory.
My observations are antidotal, but it seems like many more fans are for sale this year at market. It take this as a good sign of improved economics and more modern conviences.

************First there were glass containers for our soda that we named "bottles". Then came steel and aluminium "cans". Now we are back to bottles with plastics. Here in Morocco, all three states of drink container technology exist more or less peacefuly side by side in the store refrigerator. I like the glass bottles best. It has an odd retro look and feel. They have solid reasuring protective heft of thick cold glass in your hand. Good in case of a fight too.