I guess a person's opinion on this would be determined, a lot, by the number of guns they buy and use, i.e., first hand experience. With the advent of the internet, issues that we normally would not hear about are suddenly out there for public knowledge and it seems like the gun industry is basically putting out junk.
I think the mindset of some of the gun industries upper management has changed from making sure they are putting out the best product possible, to getting their product out quickly, relying less on quality control. They then depend on the customer to judge the quality and function, and then make changes or improvements, if necessary, based on the number of complaints they get. Kind of a, "throw it out there and see if it sticks" attitude.
This may be due to the increased competition among gun manufactures. I don't know what the figures are, but it seems like somebody is coming out with a different, smaller (you name it) gun every month.