BillT has it right...I'd rather deprime Berdan ammo with my teeth! LOL!
To be sure, you get more traffic with controversy than petting kittens...reminds me of when I used to do music reviews...the editors would hire me because I excelled in nasty/snarky/funny and could make artists cry. One morning it dawned on me that I was turning myself into a, ahem, asshole for hire, so I stopped.
About 1911s, you guys have pretty much said it all...I bought 4 of the damn things this year — the Para GI Expert that got turned into the retro 1911A1, a Remington R1, a Colt Rail Gun and another one we'll be talking about later. The Remington, the Colt and the other one have all been 100% out of the box, and that includes a LOT of rounds through them all. I talked about the Para problems earlier this year, sent it back and it was 100% thereafter. Pretty much like a Glock.
FQ, sometimes there's an apples/oranges issue when we compare 1911s to modern polymer-framed service pistols. To wit, we compare a generic 1911 to a Glock, where the more correct thing to do would be to compare a generic 1911 to a generic plastic frame pistol (and there are a few floating around, like a Hi-Point or an FMK). I imagine you'd find pretty much the same levels of quality.
If you look at my father's 1911A1 Remington Rand, you see a combat pistol with all the attributes you outline...works all the time with the ammo it was designed for, can be disassembled by a poodle and all the mission-critical parts can be replaced in the field. People like me took that gun, made it more complicated, less reliable and available with tail fins and racing stripes.
And Col. Cooper and I had our differences, but more times than not he was right, I was wrong.
Michael B