I don't disagree, and like I said I avoid 'made in china as well (id be willing to bet i have more north american made products than you, and many other people). i didn't really have experience with pre-china K2s, so I can't compare. i also recognize that in general, you would be an idiot to say that china has good quality control regulation. i am not supporting china for one second here (believe me, i have been in many heated arguments against china). what i have found however, is that people now assume that anything made in china is no good, which is not true. what i have found through significant research and experience is that many chinese factories produce extremely high quality (even better than american or canadian or european products) products, and yes, they do give the company the option to lower prices (whether they do or not is up to them).
i definitely would rather support the NA economy (especially right now) and people who do like to actually involved in their company, put in hard work to put out a high quality product. I would also rather not have products shipped all over the place. i think one of the problem of quality is so much decided by where the product is made. rather it depends on the manufacturing style. it just happens, that china has a number of quantity focused factories and north america and to an extent europe have more involved, smaller production. if you find a canadian made product from a big company that is focused on quantity and takes an assembly line, time reducing approach, the quality will be low.
while some workers remain in poor conditions, this was a much larger concern in the past decades.
i ride a pair of armadas, and do think that the quality is quite good; however, I would say that is a result of the materials armada chooses to use (which are more expensive than K2s) and not the fact that they are made in Europe (in another company's factory in austria (?? i believe)).
i have no problem with choosing not to buy from a given country for the right reasons. in this case, quality could be a fair reason, but i just dont think we can say that all chinese products are crap, anymore. china has really stepped up their game (so have the companies that are using their cheap labour) though a lot of shit still comes out of the country. i think our countries should also step up the regulation for what they allow to come into our country.
to be honest though, im glad you don't buy chinese stuff. it's a lot better than the many people on here that only look at the price of products as far as their own wallet is concerned.