Sadly, as the author of the article found, industry shuffling and badge engineering has made it difficult to know just what you're getting behind the nameplate. These days you have to do some research or take what you get.
About 15 years back we swapped out our house's builder installed appliances. They were all low to mid priced Whirlpool and with cheesy build quality but adequate performance and had been reliable. The dishwasher was horribly loud but at least it hadn't broken.
The replacements were a mixed bag.
Bosch dishwasher. Made somewhere in Europe, forget where. Bought it because of their reputation for quiet. Not disappointed. We've been able to peacefully watch TV in the adjacent family room ever since. It did break about a year ago. Just the on/off button. Not even the electrical switch behind the button, just the plastic cap. Easy, cheap fix.
GE microwave/convection/vent hood. Good unit, very happy with operation. Two annoyances, though. Plastic louvered fascia grill held on by teeny, tiny plastic tabs. Broke twice. Easy to replace but there's little excuse. Only the smallest amount of extra material in two spots of the mold would have prevented the problem entirely. And the door handle was only anchored by one screw at the top. The unit is made to be mounted at eye level, so you always grab that handle at the bottom. Thus it flexes ever so slightly every time you open the door. Eventually fatigued and failed. Again, relatively simple fix, but it should have never happened in the first place. All they had to do was invert the design and anchor it at the bottom (or better yet, both).
Bosch oven. Made in Italy. Unit functioned well. Never any complaints about cooking performance. My only complaints were about the digital display. Resetting the clock was annoyingly non-intuitive (even for someone who never had problems setting VCR clocks). And the stupid thing wasn't bright enough to see in the daytime.
Bosch cooktop. Made in USA. Imagine that. Turns out Bosch had gotten into the American cooker business by buying a US company. (Thermador IIRC, but I cant remember for sure. I did see the exact same unit with the American company's nameplate back then when we were shopping.)
What a piece of JUNK! First off, right out of the box it didn't work. Great, a unit shipped from the factory with non-functioning igniters. Idiots. The local factory service guy was good, though. I had to bring it in to him but at least he got it working straight away. The precision of assembly was awful. The valves were each pointing in a different direction and required completely different torque to operate. The ceramic coating wasn't fired correctly or something and spots just flaked off. I was soooooo glad to get that piece of @#$%^ out of my life when we did the remodel a few months ago. And did I mention that the silicone feet on the burner grates had to be replaced constantly?
At the remodel a few months ago we replaced the microwave/convection/vent with a Kitchenaid. I probably would have gone with another GE since I knew its quirks and was at least happy with its performance. But our new cooktop has higher output burners, the KA was specified for higher vent flow and I wanted as much airflow as I could get. Time will tell but early indicators aren't hopeful. Out of the box it was obvious the KA was sourced from some unknown offshore factory. The build quality is very poor and what little inadequate instructions were included were in pathetically bad Engrish. The whole thing reeks of cheesy import trash. I made sure to buy and store away extra backsplash tiles. If/when the thing craps out I'll just replace it, which would mean we'd have to re-do big sections of backsplash.
Hey Guest!
Hey - did you know if you click on the title of a thread it will take you to the first unread post since you last visited that thread?
but were afraid to ask: 
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smilie in place of the real @
Pretty Please - add it to our Events forum(s) and add to the calendar! >> 
PJ
PJ