In the day before the boom of fly by night AR builders, Bushmaster was really the alternative to Colt and Armalite, with DPMS being the budget version. A lot has changed since then. I have two pre-windham split Bushy’s, fantastic rifles, and I built over a hundred AR’s on Bushmaster receiver sets until the Windham/Remington transition(s). I have built on a dozen or so Bushmaster lowers after the split, and have about as many of their NM 2 stage triggers. I’d be lying to say I saw any change in product quality from ~22yrs ago when I bought my first Bushy receivers versus those I bought a year and a half ago. I will always say good things about the Windham guys, as I got to know them a bit through sponsorship when I was riding bulls in the PRCA - they crank out good rifles, but I also can’t say I think there’s anything bad about the current BM rifles. I handled a friend’s Varmint Special Stainless a few months ago at the beginning of prime fur season and beside mine, more than a decade older, only the extra scratches on mine were the only give away.
The DPMS rifles take a lot of flack, but only because a lot of these new AR builders had to drag them through the mud to be able to sell their “no better rifle” at a higher price than DPMS because they didn’t have the volume to meet DPMS’s prices. Something I always find interesting - on predatormastersforums.com, there was an informal competition several years ago, after a long run of the contest, a DPMS Sweet 16, allegedly bone stock, held the smallest group. But hey, my buddy who builds AR’s says DPMS’s are junk, so I’m gonna buy a Spikes/Aero/PSA/whatever instead...
My only complaint about Bushmaster rifles, and their lowers, which is largely trivial, is the high volume of rollstamp and text on the receiver. Everything about the manufacture is great, but there’s a lot on their magwell billboard. Not so uncommon for many brands these days, I suppose though, and I don’t like it when anyone does it, not just Bushmaster.