The tool rest thread has got me thinking (uh oh). First off, I am somewhat appalled by the whole thing. Not really though because it is indicative of the current state of manufacturing, not only here in this country but world wide. High quality products seem to have been relegated to the same archive as "backwards compatibility". Not to say that there are not good products out there because there are and some exceptional ones as well. But the "mainstream" stuff is just not making it.
The "unnamed manufacturer" of the part in question is well known and, as I understand it, a great supporter of this forum. I once posted a comment about a planer I bought from this same manufacturer that had a nasty habit of slinging the drive chain off it's sprockets. There was no way to remove a link because then the chain would have been too short. And no adjustment to be found anywhere. A conversation with the manufacturer's support people yielded this comment: "Oh yeah… that's a problem… no, there is no way to adjust it. No, we can't really do anything about it…" I ended up fabricating a tensioner for the chain which took care of the problem.
Some time later I posted this "story:" here on SMC. The aficionados of this unnamed manufacturer thundered into the conversation and I was throughly castigated for being unfair. The main reason given was that my machine was one made in the early days of the company's existence and that their quality had "come up" dramatically in the intervening years as had their customer support. But now. here we are reading about the same kind of nonsense. Sorry… nothing we can do. And so machine owners are left with having to spend additional time and money modifying their equipment, essentially completing the manufacturing process themselves. I suppose one could justify this by considering the lower cost of these machines as compared to more costly options and accepting the "you get what you pay for" philosophy.
This would not be too much of an issue if it were not so prevalent. Unfortunately, this is the prevailing attitude of manufacturers in general. One of the largest manufacturers of computers and personal electronic devices has had an ongoing issue with their charger cords which fray and short out with distressing regularity. It's an issue that has been discussed "ad nauseum" on the internet. And still, the manufacturer not only does nothing to correct the problem, they refuse to even acknowledge it. Examples like this are so numerous that it would be folly to attempt to document all of them.
These large "global" corporations are IMMHO, simply too large and cumbersome to have the flexibility to move quickly to deal with issues like these. The ones that get the top marks for responsiveness and customer service tend to be the smaller, privately owned companies. These guys can be much lighter on their feet and can make changes much faster and at much less cost when the need arrises. Their products tend to cost more initially but, more often than not, the higher cost is offset by better quality, longer working life, fewer problems and more responsive service when it is needed.
I would suggest that if you are going to buy from a company selling the lowest cost option, you might expect to encounter some issues you are going to have to deal with yourself. As long as you are willing to do this, you can probably get along just fine.