...is that engineers treat delivered components - like engines - pretty much equally - whether its from Deere , Cummins, etc... when your a combine engineer - or a tractor or loader or cotton picker engineer - your engine supplier is the enemy, because all of their problems get rolled into your machine - no matter how well you design the rest of it.   Everyone at Deere is frustrated at Engine works, simply because every engine issue becomes the larger machine's issue.  I bet they joke it would be easier to buy from cummins.

Even with your experience, you really have to look at the statistics.  Maybe your number was up, and you finally got the early failing machine.  I'm not saying I know the statitics for the modern engines, but I am saying that no one else one this forum does either - until I am proven wrong.  

Could we all be on to something? - absolutely, but until we keep the numbers, and compare it to older engines, our "wisdom" lay in the realm of hypothesis.