Are we supposed to base this on our own personal experience with pins that we own? Or are we supposed to speculate based on what we read on Pinside (which is largely an echo chamber)?

I have Sterns and a JJP pin. Never owned a Heighway pin, or Dutch, or Spooky, and I am sure that 90% or more people on Pinside will not have owned a pin from all the manufacturers in the poll.

Which makes the whole thing even less credible than most Pinside polls.

Exactly.

You get it.

I'm not going to vote in the thread but I will say this. Based just on my own experience, I am not going to give JJP any higher marks than Stern. In fact, if I have to base it on my personal experience, Stern gets higher marks in terms of overall reliability and QC.

I had no problems to speak of out of the box with my TWD or GOT.

By contrast, I had plenty of issues with my Hobbit out of the box. Some electrical issues, loose wires, a beast head that came off after a few plays, and worst of all, one of the leg plates was not attached inside of the cabinet, making it impossible to put one of the rear legs on when I got it home.

Having said that, in terms of customer service, JJP (and LTG in particular) couldn't have been better in terms of their help and speed of response. I was able to get each issue resolved.