No real argument with anything youve said here. Except maybe the “trend” part—consider this.
1)- this is a hard crowd to please. Very detail focused. So things that would pass in conventional, commercial releases are a little more under the microscope here. A good example is the screw placement and broken optic leg. To notice this nearly invisible flaw, one has to disassemble the light. That is under the hood. In most applications this is where one sees how the sausage is made. That is a fussy detail. This is a fussy population. It does not from what i have read affect the function of the light. BUT, it is a fussy detail some people have taken exception with.
2)- some of the complaints i have seen are very subjective. Meaning they will not apply to everyone. Battery fitment as an example. Ff made a dimunitive light and it takes batteries on the smaller end of 21700 variability scale. This is frankly, in my opinion an age old Li-ion issue. All of my 18650 lites and batteries do not always fit nicely. I consider this subjective. Not necessarily a fault. The recommended solution is to buy batteries that fit based on advise in the thread. The problem is most folks are trying to make batteries fit that dont. This seems silly to me. And a “user operating error” category of problem.
3)- i just ordered a 2nd e07. My order number was 87x. Which suggests nearly 900 orders placed. Lets say there are 50 folks who have had complaints that should be rectified thru warranty. The subjective issues i dismiss. 50 is a high number based on the thread. But lets use 50 (as a totally arbitrary number) of problems that need to be fixed. From ~900 orders. Thats still a ~95% success rate.
What i have personally noticed in this thread a bit less than in the pl47 thread is there are some folks with very high expectations for a 55$ flashlight. There are some folks that really zoom in at impractical levels of perception and pick out stuff that almost seems irrelevant and at times rediculous. This results in an examination mainly by the 50 unhappy folks, and consequently very little is heard from the [presumably] ~850* happy customers. *(850 customers. Some likely purchased multiple lites per order, as i did.)
I do not consider it logical to consider the 50 negative experiences as a trend, if there are in the neighnorhood of 850 people with positive experiences. Perhaps, we differ on the meaning of trend. I dunno.
I buy alot of tools. I think long and hard about duty cycle when purchasing tools. If it is a one off gig, i may purchase at harbor freight or similar import cheap type outfit. With the expectation it is about 50/50 the tool will fail or will have a less than optimal duty cycle. If i need the tool to be used 8 hours a day for a year i will opt for a more reputable brand. Even the reputable brand will have failures. And need fixing ay some point but the understanding is that there is a higher quality control and better components.
In this analogy harbor freight is within 50-70% success rate. A milwaukee (similar) tool is in the 90-95% success rate.
I would argue that ff is in the 95% success rate category. But charging harbor freight prices.
That said, its your money, and your decision. I felt i had to provide some perspective because this place is a microscope that isnt always rational.
Again, just putting that on the table.