RE: Very BAD quality Great planes ARF
Silversurfer, I understand exactly what point you're trying to make...and you are ABSOLUTELY correct.....but here is the reason that I think this is happening......
Back in college I had a business ethics course and we touched on business practices similar to this situation. Before I get into this, let me say this: I'm not saying that the PT-40 is a bad plane (I trained on one too) or GP makes crappy ARFS, (I currently have 2 of them and they're both nice) OK, with that established, here's my take on it:
Manufacturers strive to produce a product to have no known defects.....but many times, defects show up in the products after they have been on the market for some time. The manufacturer SHOULD correct the problem, BUT, what manufacturers often do is a cost analysis....what they are figuring out is, how much correcting the problem will cost vs. cost of claims against the manufacturer because of defective products........guess what, if they determine the potential costs of claims is less, they won't fix the problem. In the model airplane industry, it could be cheaper to deal with the 1% of customers that demand a refund or replacement than to re-tool production of the planes.
It's very sad, but this type of analysis is done in the auto industry, since correcting a problem requires costly recalls......auto manufacturers will calculate the odds of a part failing and causing death or injury, and how much those claims will add up to vs. the cost of recalling the cars.