The Remington 700 has always been a great action. Remington has done a good job of building and barreling those actions through the years. They should have found a better way of attaching the bolt handle and they should have been more proactive in dealing with the trigger issue. But the 700 is today a great American rifle as it always has been. QC hasn't always been spot on unfortunately. Remington 870 shotguns are the gold standard in pump shotguns. Remington should have done something about the rust attracting matte finish though. I have literally watched rust develop in heavy salt marsh air. Remington totally missed an opportunity to make a "guide" gun out of their pump rifle platform. A 338 federal (or the chambering of your choice) in a stainless synthetic platform would make a sweet "guide" gun. Mine would be stainless, carbon fiber synthetic with a straight grip stock and an 18" barrel in 338 Federal.
Remington managed to malign the Marlin name. Sorta. Marlin was always a budget gun. They had their share of issues but the lever guns were generally functional, reliable and well put together. Remington undeniably botched the initial manufacture of Marlin lever guns. There were serious fit and function issues and customer service and repair was simply bad in dealing with those issues. While Remington has finally gotten mostly back on track with the lever guns, they will never recover from the damage they did in mishandling that label. What's weird is that Marlin rimfires never appeared to suffer the same problems. They remain well respected budget rimfires.
What was that horrible damned cheap Remington bolt rifle that was being made in the mid 90's? A 710? That thing was a pre Cerebrus abortion of a rifle. So we can't pin all the blame on that takeover.
Remington customer service across the board has been pretty darned lackluster through all their missteps beginning with the 710. That has undoubtedly hurt them. We consumers can be pretty forgiving of manufacturing and quality control issues as long as customer service and repair is good. See Ruger. You can even get away with bad customer service if your product is exceptional. See Tikka.
In some ways it saddens me to see this happening with Remington. My Papaw was a Remington man. I am sure there are some good, dedicated craftsmen working with the company. I never want to see a quality worker suffer. But I'll be damned if they didn't bring this failure on themselves. Through all of this I never got so much as a hint that the company gave a schidt.
