So I hear the love for Russell Moccasins a lot. And for Courteney Boots.
Some data points for you:
I know of no complaints for Courteney whatsoever. Any issues have been addressed straight away. They are also HALF the price of a Russell Mocassin.
As to Russell Moccassins, there are many, many complaints noted if you do a quick google search.
And my personal testamonial:
Russell sent me the boots custom ordered and pictured below. Truly incompetent. I could have made a better pattern. They literally made the boot a full 1-1/4" too long in the toe and vamp. This is amateur errors. They owned up to those errors and said they'd make a new pair. I told them explicitly, I AM GETTING ON A PLANE ON X DATE, I need them BEFORE X date. They sent a new pair THE DAY AFTER the drop-dead date so they sat in the elements for a month on my porch while I was on safari. How any company could look at a pair of boots and say "these look right, regardless of shoe size" escapes me. Look at the pictures and tell me if you think that looks like it would fit anyone of any size? The pointer marks where my toe is at. Keep in mind, THEY built a pattern based on the drawings of my feet? Gayle Rice of Courteney would NEVER make this sort of error, yet Russell does this stuff all the time.
Add to that, the russell moccassins have no ankle support and are mushy. Look at the amount of used-refurb-return boots they sell per year compared to NO defective returns sold by Courteney.
Some gems from their two out of five-star overall YELP Reviews can be found here:
https://www.yelp.com/biz/russell-w-c-moccasin-berlin