David & Gansky1, interesting to hear about your own experiences with WE. Re. prices of equipment: Avaya has their stuff made in Asia as well, but it still prices out at about 1/3 more than an equivalent Panasonic PBX configuration; and Panasonic equipment is just as robust and more flexible in terms of programming. The Panasonic stuff is made in Japan and the UK, where production costs and labor are both more expensive than e.g. China.
I agree, foods not labeled for country of origin are scary; "have you had your RDA of DDT today?" Not to mention the potential for terrorist tampering (details omitted for the usual public safety reasons).
David, good point about CU testing. Though I read elsewhere on this site that Consumer Reports seems to be going downhill in certain respects lately.
Which brings us back to topic here

, specifically, what about sites such as Epinions.com? I would expect that these are picking up some of the slack from where CU leaves off, with the caveat that "layperson reviews" are not controlled tests. A significant problem such as "impeller tangle" should be evident enough to make it into epinions.com reviews, yes?
On the other hand, I've seen some product reviews on epinions.com that look like they could have been written by people who were working for the manufacturer or retailer. Is this a common problem, and what kinds of steps are taken to minimize the risk of a forum being misused that way?