Nah, "stacking cans" isn't rocket science. Just use common sense.

You ever try one of those handheld one-man augers with the Honda engine on it? I got mine used for about the same price you paid for that big box special, and it's been through three fence jobs in this same rocky Texas dirt without a hiccup. The key is keeping the blade sharp and going slow when you hit a rock, let the auger work itself through instead of forcing it. I also swapped the standard bolts for a proper shear pin setup from Tractor Supply, cost me maybe eight bucks. That little change saved me from wrecking another gearbox, and it's easy to carry spares in your truck.

Hang on though, I gotta push back on this a little. I've taken a $30 Ozark Trail bag down to the mid 20s a few times and slept fine. It's not that the bag is bad, it's that people don't treat cheap bags right. Most of those cheap ones rely on you wearing good base layers and using a proper pad with a decent R-value. If your buddy was just in cotton sweats on a foam pad, no wonder he froze. I've also found that if you stuff a cheap bag into a compression sack too tight for weeks, the fill clumps up and loses its loft. My buddy's Ozark Trail one actually kept me warmer than my old Kelty one time because I fluffed it out for an hour before bed.