Sounds like you need to be a tinkerer to be a Rossi Rifleman?
I'm a Marlin fan, but I had to send my wife's (Marlin) .357 lever gun back for what I found out later was a known flaw. I'm still happy w/ the company. Only concern is that it was back for service during 9-11 and I was concerned that the rules might change for getting it shipped back to me.
My son's first gun was the Rossi "matched pair" in .22lr and 20 gauge, and we've been very happy with it. Not a lot of moving parts, so I'm not sure what could go wrong with them or the trifecta (although, we were shooting at .25 yards with open sights, so long range accuracy was never tested). At some point I wanted to buy a scope base for it, and dealing with them on the phone was a bummer. I forget the details, but not easy to get a hold of and hard to get questions answered.
No real experience with Rossi lever guns yet, but I recently bought a Rossi in .45 Colt. It does cycle fine, even my semi-wadcutter reloads, but I have not fired it yet. I guess I better run some rounds through it when the weather warms up. Most of the snow is gone, I could probably find my brass if we go out this weekend.
Not to be contrary, but I've also had good luck with the Taurus .22 revolvers. I'm not sure the exact current status of the relationship between Taurus and Rossi, but these are guns that everybody loves to hate. I've had three of them over the years and been lucky enough that they all worked well. I'm a huge Ruger fan, but my Ruger SP-101 in .22lr has been back to the factory once already. Ruger's CS was a joy to deal with, which is a big difference.