When a company starts to get controlled by the wants and needs of either the retailer or the consumer, bad things happen. People are cheap is what this comes down to. On a forum like this, I would wager to say that most people do not want to pay more for something when a comparable item is less. There are of course those on this forum know what this breeds as well and steer clear of things like this but by comparison are few and far between. So, one company build an item a little cheaper to gain marketshare, the competition build theirs cheaper next, then it gets cheaper again and cheaper again from the competition. So you have a nice downward spiral based primarily on the cheap price. So do you think the manufacturer makes less on their products, sometimes, in most cases though, they started to use less than stellar parts and build factories. End result is that sure the PG name was on the front but at what expense, who was building it and at what level of quality as compared to the once proud company that they were. Part of PG's downfall (and others in this industry as well), is that they went cheap and it cost them in warranty returns big time. Part of it is marketing, part of it is poor management. All in all it was a combination of factors. The only ones though that this mattered to was the consumer, the stuff was breaking but the consumers indeed were the same ones that wanted it cheap.