MDuffy - I'll bet the person your husband was talking to didn't get the sarcasm for at least two days...may be terrible - but true.
Quality is often an afterthought - especially when the designer is a salaried employee or when the consumer will accept Brand "X".
The INDUSTRY must demand the standards just as you described (DOTs nuclear whatevers etc). Pragmatically, I shudder to think how much sooner the event should have happened - how many disasters had to take place before the government demanded the standard?
I am not as gentle as you in your description of the companies that "don't get it" - deep down, they 'get it' - I think they are just too lazy and greedy to admit it. If they truly don't 'get it' - they missed their true calling in either the food service or house cleaning industries.
Changes that must take place for the paradigm shift are going to shift budgets. Vacations will be lost, bonuses will evaporate - maybe next year...
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