I'll toss in my .02, of the Revell of Germany kits I have built in the past few years, they have with the exclusion of one, been flawless. That defective one had a severely short shot canopy, the lower left rear portion. Fortunately it was not inside the frame line, so I was able to scratch build the missing structure with Evergreen stock.
So, all in all I've been very happy with my ROG purchases. But a hobbyist shouldn't have to find these sorts of issues when opening a kit, and if one doesn't have the experience to make a correction like that, the kit becomes just an unsatisfactory waste.
My suggestion is to the manufacturers, use quality assurance checks of say every 100th kit, with a full inspection of the major parts like wings, fuselage, canopy, etc. Otherwise the defective parts just keep getting cranked out, one after another. The modern kits are pricey, someone buying a $100+ kit has every right to expect the quality that those high prices indicate.
The completely inexcusable part of this encounter that Wilbur had, is that when requesting the replacement part due to that flaw, another flawed one was sent. Seriously??? Why would someone representing their employer, simply not take the time to ensure the problem was actually corrected.
For Wilbur: My hobby shop once rather scolded me for making major corrections to defective kits, saying they wanted me to return them so they could replace them. That way they return the kits to the distributors, and they can make the manufacturers know of the problems they are causing. That's the only way to hold them accountable for quality issues. So go for it, Wilbur. The HS sold it to you, they should take the extra steps to get the problem off of your back, onto the ones that caused this to happen.
Best of luck with it.
Patrick