I prefer bags over hard cases. The HF bags are pretty cheap and seem to hold up fine.

As far as the useless boxes left over from old tools, all the ones I've seen are injection molded. One of these days I intend to cut the tool form out of a couple to make a hard storage box for some other tool. I intend to cut dense foam to fit a tool and accessories similar to a fitted gun case...just haven't found the need yet.