You could say it was a QC issue then as the parts shouldn't pop off that easily. Opening a toy that falls to bits is a QC issue. Or at the very least it would become a PR issue as people won't continue to buy toys that fall to bits when you just get them out of the box, which is nowhere near the stress they'd endure if you gave them to a kid to play with. Pretty bad looking that is. That is the very thing that stopped and turned me off buying minicons ever again. They just fell to bits all the time, so I just said forget those then. So yea, I still feel they just dodged the issue.

And about the paint, yes, I do see your point there. You want to know if they find a sub-par finish to be acceptable given the budget. Well, I hope that I read that right, because if so, I'd like to know too, and yea, it would even further entrench my opinion that they are cheap skating it too much. Also the budget has increased, the deluxe is now $10.99 USD retail.