This happened before in countless products where it used to matter who made it, then all players achieved more or less satisfying results and the product became

This happened before in countless products where it used to matter who made it, then all players achieved more or less satisfying results and the product became a commodity - or took a completely irrational turn into emotions, retro and sentiments; wrist watches come to mind. There used to be specialty high end manufacturers of nearly all everyday items but once something hits commodity status, it gets sent to China and to the lowest bidder. Making lenses imperfect just to give retro character is going exactly where the watch industry went after Quartz.