It was definitely stupid of me to upgrade my 26er with xtr. At the time it had 9 speed xtr so I sold them on ebay and it didn’t seem like a huge splurge. Now it seems idiotic.
Appreciate the advice on entry level deore brakes. If I can get this bike working properly again I probably won’t even think about selling it for a while, but when it acts up I get anxious to discover the joys of modern xc bikes 