Well this is what I meant in an earlier post about most companies going from grey to black -- I think it's well understood that black companies have AT LEAST these issues (and I'm sure more that I don't know about), but this is definitely not the case at every japanese company I think...

I think one of the only exceptions I know of is Nikon, I've heard they don't have such strict/crazy practices. Trying hard to think of more exceptions, but I can't, so maybe you're right :\