"The problem isn't really "brand" so much as "vendor lying^W^Wmarketing"."

I understand that it seems that every brand has downmarketed to at least walmart quality in most consumer goods, but that is a failure of branding and business/product management. Well, and the fact that once a consumer product "brand" hits a bump, it gets scooped up for its previous reputation and then stamped on junk.

It really is depressing that the internet has not produced some sort of historical tracker of brands (or politicians) and their actual quality and reputation scores.

Maybe consumer reports, which probably has more historical data than anyone in this regard, could produce something like this.