Not sure what you're saying here. For example, Star: a long-time maker of quality firearms for the European market (regrettably, now gone) -- "off-brand" for us Americans, but this company's guns have served many military and civilians well for many years. Taurus, same. The Turkish gun companies? The Turks have been producing high-quality firearms for years. Star, and the Turkish companies, are not "off-brand." Taurus, regardless of its internet reputation, has been producing quality handguns for military, civilian and law enforcement markets for years (just maybe not ours).
There's quite a few companies out there that whose brands may not have the cachet of S&W, Colt, Beretta, SIG or FN, but they're hardly "off-brand." A lot of the so-called second-tier manufacturers are using that the same high-quality methods, tooling and machinery of the more well-know makers. RIA, for example, is using state of the art manufacturing technology and putting out some fantastic guns.