I've heard plenty of things about Mirco that would give me pause before buying a playfield, but this isn't one of them:

I don't know of any other hobby where people think it's even reasonable to ask a vendor to pay for return shipping. If you don't like a product, you return it on your own dime. No different than buying a pair of shoes from an online vendor-- do you expect that vendor to pay return shipping if you don't like the way the shoes fit?

1) If its defective, its on the vendor.

In this case its subjective and the OP is beating a dead horse. The registration is off no more than I have seen on factory playfields.

He knew Micro's rep going in but did it anyways. I purchased a playfield from Micro last year full well knowing I could be out $900.

When you offer a scorpion a ride, you have little room to complain when he stings you.

2) If I order a size 11 shoe, a size 11 best come in and be sized appropriately. If a size 9 comes in, it is rightly on the vendor to replace on their dime.

I have had plenty of hobbies were vendors paid return shipping including PBR and Pinball Life.

There was errors in the order and they made it right.

If it's truly defective, the correct response from the vendor would be a refund and they probably wouldn't even want the product back. But this isn't "defective", it's not an incorrect item shipped. The buyer doesn't *like* the item, and expects the vendor to eat return shipping, which is unreasonable (but again, seems a common expectation in this hobby for whatever strange reason).

I assumed ostracized started with an au instead of an o. I have upvoted your post for this useful piece of information!

Well, the issue here is that the purchaser believes the item IS defective (the registration is off), while other people here are saying it's normal/expected.

So, if it IS defective, the return should be paid for by the seller, but if it just isn't "perfect enough" for the buyer, he should pay to ship it back.

The question becomes "How much registration error is normal?".
If it had been off by two more inches, everyone would agree it was defective.
But if it was off by another quarter of an inch, would it be defective then? - hard to say.

As someone who has been a part of many PF swaps I have to agree. I actually just posted about my CPR playfield in another thread but my field is still NIB due to the fact that my original plays great. It never got full Mylar either. No real major wear but it has some paint missing throughout due to age but still very presentable.