If you use a sledgehammer instead of a screwdriver, don't complain about furniture falling apart.

That's more a function of battery-powered drills being good enough and the stuff that requires a plug is designed to drill through concrete. My cordless Milwaukee has pressure-sensitive speed and a very granular torque setting, along with hammer drill and screw settings. My Ikea furniture is basically bulletproof.

Ikea, perhaps unsurprisingly, sells a cheap cordless driver ($20 US) with a torque limiter.

Perhaps this is unusual in the US but entry-level corded drills are readily available in the UK.

I don't know if this store is a good example, but this USA based store appears to stock a range of cheap corded drills:

https://www.lowes.com/pl/Drills-Drills-drivers-Power-tools-T...

I wonder if corded drills might be more common in the UK because your higher mains voltage means less current is required for a given power output. With conversion losses, you can't realistically pull more than a horsepower out of a typical 120V/10A circuit without risking a breaker trip, even if there's nothing else connected to the circuit. That makes a corded tool potentially much more of a pain to use than a battery-powered one, so even if the corded version would otherwise be much more cost-efficient, it still may be a tougher sell in the US.

I've heard the same power limitation described as a reason why electric kettles basically don't exist here, although since kitchen circuits are typically rated for higher current than most others, I suspect the absence of good electric kettles may have more to do with steeped tea having been displaced by drip coffee in Americans' morning cups.

I never realised that, but it makes sense. Canadians don't use electric kettles either and they like their tea! When I lived in Canada everyone seemed to have a stovetop whistling kettle.

Looking at my Australian-designed Chinese-built UK kettle, it's rated at "2760-3000W", which is far more than can be drawn from a standard US 120V outlet.

I wonder if that's also why I've seen almost no electric/induction cooktops in American media even though from my Central European POV induction tops are safer, easier to regulate etc. than gas cooktops.

As for not seeing them in the media, that is likely because electric cooktops don't make for good video. The pop of a nice blue flame is much more interesting. Additionally, most high end kitchen appliances are gas since gas is preferred by most professional kitchens.

A typical 120V circuit in the US is either 15A or 20A. Where are you finding 10A circuits?

You can get enough torque to break your wrist with 10 amps at 120v.

It gave me some idea of what things were worth at the pawn shop.

Everyone should have a basic toolbox that includes a cordless drill.

Corded drills are just _drills_. Cordless drills are typically drill / drivers.

Much like electrical circuits, it's not really that useful to have a limiter when you don't know what to limit it to.

Instead you start low and increase the setting one click at a time until the screw is seated properly, then use that setting for the rest of the screws.