For me, it's pretty much irrelevant that operators back in the day didn't care if some games fell apart right out of the factory as long as they were printing money. I'm not an operator and these machines aren't an investment towards earning income, they're luxury collector expenditures.
George Gomez has mentioned at least a few times that one of their biggest challenges is the changing attitude around expectations as they shift more towards collectors, so I'm not worried about them figuring this stuff out...because their business depends on it.