I feel your pain Skip. No more Lionel anything until they get their act together. Whether it's Wrong paint (Niagara, Hudson, this engine), mechanical defects (mogul), couplers that don't couple (milk cars and other latest rolling stock), paint that chips off (Milk cars). I'm DONE!!!!
I agree with you about it's not the dealers fault to a point. Once a defect has been discovered and is well known, dealers need to take defective inventory off the shelves and send it back. How many dealers out there have the latest Milk car on shelves and know about the paint issues and the coupler issues yet continue to sell to unsuspecting customers???? Plus Lionel which does not own up to their mistakes, which needs to change and they needs to recall their defective products.
There, I've done my rant for the week. I now return you to your regularly scheduled programing 
