Here's my two cents on the situation, and I say this as a person who has had about 40% of the Lionel locomotives I've purchased come with defects that need warranty repairs:
Lionel does not have the best quality control but even if it did, tolernaces, manufacturing processes, shipping, and human error will always result in some marginal level of defective products.
Lionel reads these posts and is well aware of the issues. It's possible that someone at Lionel is smart enough to connect the dots - dissatisfaction in QC and possibly diminishing sales - perhaps a factor in the move to BTO?
I've spoken to the Lionel reps at shows and whenever the QC issue comes up, they take the position that there is a vocal minority that is never happy. To me, that's a sort of rationalization and the volume of warranty returns would bear that out.
All this to say: Lionel is a business and as such, the QC issue (like any other with cost implications) is an actuarial exercise, as was the Pinto to Ford. If you keep buying new items (which I'm guilty of doing because the tech advances aren't yet outweighed to me by my frustration level), and the warranty repairs don't amount to a significant hit to cost sheet, then there's little incentive for a capital expenditure to improve QC. This is a statement about any company ... (see my footnote statement below in blue).
