Even tho the article is mostly about Hon Hai Precision Industry and Apple, it could apply to UF/TF/Rom etc.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2010/09/01/made-in-china-tech-ethics-and-economics/1
You will have to read the entire article, cannot really include a "quote" here.
Indeed - and probably even more so.
Interesting article, thanks for the link.
I had an idea it was that bad, but after reading this made me think it is even worse than i thought. Human rights and treatment there are well beyond what most europeans would tolerate in a very short term. It wouldn't surprise me if we see some major civilian revolts/war in the near future. Who's to blame? The hunger for power/money of some individuals and many others beneath them looking for their share. Human greed was never so apparent in history till last decade.
We, costumers aren't helping either as we constantly demand better products for less money. It's a chain reaction...
Maybe its time for earth to hit it's failsafe device and do a hard reboot of itself. Due to recent reports we are certainly not far from it. But thats another topic and i wish no further discussion of it. I believe it would make people sad and i dislike the very thought of it.
China's problems are numerous and probably mostly outside of the scope of this forum. As to the related part, I've always been curious why communication from the manufacturers to the consumers is so poor. For example, pretty much every flashlight hobbyist hates flashing modes and want a 2-3 level light in WH to neutral tint with maybe 2-4AA, but this basically doesn't exist. Incredibly, NOT A SINGLE ONE of those criteria can be meet (except maybe for 2AA 
). If someone can get that trifecta (which would cost them about all of nothing), they can probably sell the lights for double and we'd be tripping over each other to get one.
Seriously, the owners and managers must be too busy squeezing every last penny out of their employees to bother with actual customer demands.
My guess is that the volume manufacturers are completely uninterested in the specialist market we represent. They have deals with foreign retailers for tens of thousands to millions of the things and I'd guess it is these purchasers for the likes of WalMart or military forces that are actually setting the feature list just as with mobile phones the networks are the customer, not the end user so they get to set the specifications.
Regarding those 3xAAA and strobes... Well i believe there are alot of causal light buyers astonished by disco modes and compactness using easy to find AAA's. It's easy to drive crees with 3xAAA much less with 2xAAA or 4xAAA (or AA) so that's probably why we get alot of those all over again. Many want them + cheap to make = instant win. Due to masssssss production of cheap drivers with high med strobe, many good flashlights get this POS driver to reduce costs!
Nearly all my friends are happy with those basic p4 overdriven junky zoom to throws (like x2000, c30... you name it) with zero regulation and tons of beam artifacts topped by state of the art obnoxious assemby and QC. They simply don't care. I have troubles myself trying to convince them to get a "real" flashlight for few € more.
Untill that change we will se more strobes since it is a "feature" many want at start but sooner or later disklike. They will however keep selling those a ton untill costumers educate themselves enough.
I can understand if half or even 75%, or even 90%, of the lights are crappy designs with hands-me-down drivers than no rational person would ever prefer. But right now it's almost 100% in multimodes! Given that making a 2xAA or 4xAA body cost absolutely nothing (I've seen them on cheap non-cree flashlights at the local store), and we know that 2-mode or 3-mode would cost nothing (removing modes from the typical 3/5 mode driver is trivial, especially given that there are about a million sanzhai surface mount PCB machines around shenzheng). Good design in this case (especially when it's hand to them on a platter), is essentially free money for the taking. Only one factory has to step up with a couple models (out the hundreds if not thousands out there) and all of them will learn how fast these sell out and follow.
What's really ironic is, aren't these guys supposed to good at copying? Doesn't almost every expensive light have better UI?
Thus far, the only few lights I've been really satisfied with are 1 mode, and I've only got 1 item (p60 warm module) with good 2 mode, and I've so little faith in these guys I actually think it's a fluke (but I've purchased another just to be sure :)).
---
Another funny story involves: http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.41840. This is a copy of the Gerber DET tool. It's a $90 variation of the $60 MP600 where they added a couple things mostly only useful to riggin up C4 explosives. I bought the DX one just in case I ever wake up in a movie plot, and I have the standard genuine black oxide MP600. Someone suggested that it might be a backdoor OEM product, but from my observations almost every tool/item on it is slightly off, so it's a complete knock-off copy. I'm guessing it's mostly for domestic (to china) sales or maybe to other 3rd world countries, since there's no way any major foreign distributor would be fooled. The tool is ok, probably a bit better than it's low price suggests but not by much (the knife on mine wiggles a bit, the finish is paint instead of oxide, clips for the pliers a bit giggly, but the tool is in some areas ever tighter tolerance than the Gerber, lol); but this is going to be a $5 item from a street vendor. The spike is pretty cool, too.
So anyway, why copy that model? DId they just buy the most expensive MP600 to copy and assumed it's the "best one"? Was it the only one they can get shipped to china on ebay? Do chinese workers use a lot of C4? The mystery of chinese manufacturing continues to shock and awe.