Ahh the good old days when points and condensers were reliable and every car ran on them!
And thats brings me to my point (get it!
). Back in the day when there were thousands of these cars on the road a producer could produce a high volume of quality parts because they benefited from economies of scale and pretty much guarantee that they would get sold.
Fast forward to today and there are roughly 1000 cars that use these points still around (according to How Many Left). To make a set of points and a condenser to a reasonable price point it is inevitable that cuts will be made and a cheaper solution will be sought, simply because there are less cars on the road. There is an increasing pressure on sellers to sell a quality product but remember, these companies need to make a profit to survive and without a lot of these companies parts supply would simply dry up.
Another aspect is the fact that these cars tend to be used less, points corrode and I suspect that condensers don't really like being left idle for long winters on a drive or in a garage regardless of quality.
I don't doubt that the quality has diminished and I personally don't know how long a set of points and condenser will actually last with regular usage. I have decided to keep the ones in RUK which will be a daily driver (no not a 'yeah I'll use it at the weekend daily' a proper daily driver) and see how long they actually last before fitting the optronic system.