If I ever ran out of other stuff to do for engineering-like fun, I'd set up a test fixture and measure the force required to break a selection of Howa screws, as well as the M3 and M4 bushing concepts.
I hear what you're saying. That is music to my ears.
Been doing product development and testing for 20+ years, in an engineering role myself. Seen a wide spectrum of failures, and successes. Most recently, with Japanese suppliers. Although they are extremely detail oriented, they don't always factor in the "hard use" cases. Seen it with powertrains and drivetrains. When their stuff started breaking, they seemed shocked. It wasn't until both sides realized that they didn't account for hard use cases, that it made sense. Apparently in the Japanese viewpoint, the operator should never be hard on a machine.
That isn't how American users think or operate
And perhaps an explanation why that tiny bolt stop screw was chosen for the Howa/Vanguard. In the Japanese viewpoint, no sane person would ever yank the bolt back hard enough to break it. Japanese engineers said the same thing when we were destroying their drivetrains during development.
