Taurus does seem to suffer from quality control issues. I think this is inevitable with any company that competes on price. Even if they have a lower labor cost, labor is still a major expense for any manufacturer.
They also seem to have some model lines that are affordable, decent, and are really hard to find complaints about.
IMO, they're fairly middle of the road, and if you pick the right gun, or get one that doesn't have issues in any case, they can be a good value. Their sales numbers aren't really that surprising.
I think this is pretty much spot on. It's all about variance and thinking about the whole process rather than just parts, methinks. If one has, either because of a) product design (i.e. designing product that's easy to get right) or b) very good process design (usually made easier by having a product that's easy to build right due to good design, but not necessarily) a great and well-built product with little variance, it's less likely to get complaints. Having great CS response is obviously made easier by not putting pressure on it by having a) and b).
Plausible examples (though there are certainly others) are Glock for simple design that perhaps eases building it well and Henry for a design that's a bit more complex but when one takes one apart, or notices how tightly the wood fits and how smooth it is there's obviously a very good manufacturing process design in play. I've never had a problem with a Glock, but I've heard good things about their CS; I have had one problem with a Henry that was fixed in a "wow...just wow" manner (actually I once had something with a Henry that wasn't even its fault that it fixed in a "wow...just wow" manner). Of course, when you have next to no variance in your product and process this means that your CS will naturally have less pressure on it, and can be more helpful/responsive. The proverbial "virtuous circle" in action.
It makes sense, then, that some Taurus stuff will be very good and others not so much - variance. Also, because of this variance, there's a bit more pressure on the CS system, which also has some variance of its own. This variance also impacts the price Taurus is able to extract from the market for its products, just as lower variance allows Henry/Glock (and others) to extract the price they do from the market.
In another industry, the example of Snapper mowers and why it decided to pull its line from Wal-Mart is instructive. Before anybody gets excited I like and shop at Wal-Mart, but I have no delusions that they emphasize price and therefore are willing to accept a bit more variance in quality of what is sold, and tend to use their market power to put a lot of pressure on their suppliers to get price down. Snapper pulled out because it couldn't make its products at a level of quality it desired (must start on first pull, etc.) while meeting the price point Wal-Mart wanted.
There's a book by Charles Fishman called "The Wal-Mart Effect" where I read about this. It's an instructive book by the way. It's not an anti-Wal-Mart screed, but it does take a detailed look about how Wal-Mart has affected the way consumers think about price and quality, and the impact that this has on manufacturing and where/how it's done.
This is not necessarily bad, but can be, depending on perspective. As another example (from the book), think about underarm deodorant. It used to come in cardboard boxes; now it has a little shrink wrap, either around the whole container (especially when you buy a two-pack) or around the joint between the cap and body of the container for tamper-evidence. Wal-Mart was a key driver on this; it realized that the product container was actually more sturdy than the cardboard box it came in (and the box obviously made the package bigger and therefore took up more shelf space, added more weight/bulk to shipments, etc.) so questioned the utility of having the cardboard box. Wal-Mart's so big that manufacturers complied with the design change request (and probably saw the logic as well), which means that all retailers now sell underarm deodorant in this type of packaging. Reduces waste so a good thing, yes? The guy that used to work at the cardboard box factory may beg to differ.
Sorry for length. This thread has obviously set my hamster running ;-).
). Increased sales is the reason. 
