I have been using apple products for a long time now, and it seems that for every apple product I buy I manage to find a flaw. whether its iPhones that have scratches and chips out of the box, iPads with uneven tone of the display (one area water than the other), or a MacBook with the lid shifted compared to the base. my experience is that no apple product will be perfect out of the box, and that trying to get a replacement is not worth the hassle as the replacements as well are not perfect out of the box. and lets not talk about fiascos like the butterfly keyboard which was kept alive for way too long.
now, if it was a mid-range tech company, where the products were cheaper, that would have made sense, but the apple brand is synonymous with quality and luxury, and for the price they charge for their products - wouldn't it have made sense to accept no less than perfection? to expect more rigorous quality control?
maybe people who have insight on how apple and similar companies do quality control can shed some light on that, and on why the end result often doesn't seem to match Apples reputation?
why I made a couple of years break from apple: I bought the 13 pro, it arrived with a 1mm gap between the glass and the frame on the top left corner, the official store employee was assuring me that it's normal (I asked me to show me another such phone in their inventory of thousands, he just shrugged his shoulders and told me there was nothing he could do about it).
sweared to never get another device from them but had lots of issues with missed notifications on my Fold 3 and 4 (family and work is too important to put up with that, no matter how great those devices were overall).
so yeah I am here out of bare necessity only, otherwise I do agree with you 100%. also - my iphone 8 build quality still seems much better than my 15 pro max.