To add to Jan's insightful analysis: The qualtiy of bikes, like all other manufactured things, depends fundam entally on two factors: design and execution. If the designer has quali ty, however that may be defined, as his or her objective, then one can a ssume that quality will improve with experience, and in that case later built bikes should be better than earlier ones, barring any errors in ju dgement on the part of the designer. Execution is another story, and de pends on factors such as those discussed by Jan, especially the pressure to produce in numbers to meet demand. So one question that can be aske d is: would you rather have a bike of excellent design and average exec ution (construction), or average design and excellent execution ? Perso nnaly speaking, I'll take the former if I can't have excellence in both.
Len Grossman, S. Orange NJ