Dave Plowman (News) presented the following explanation :
I do have an AVO 8, but it stays in its beautiful leather case. The number
of times it would be better for fault finding rather rare.

I last used one of mine, I have several, several years ago to fault
find a mystery discharge on my car when parked. It was handy not only
for the flick of the needle, but for the fact it didn't shut itself off
after several minutes untouched, as a digi-meter would.