You've got to feel a little sorry for the gun companies and how they're constantly being puzzled by the buying public ...
S&W introduces the M&P pistol
without a manual safety, thinking that's what everyone wants. Of course, then when they quietly design a .45 variation
with a manual safety, because a then-anticipated military pistol submission program spec includes it ... suddenly everyone's clamoring for the same thing on the commercial model.
Fine, they make the revisions so they can introduce manual safeties to the commercial M&P line. They make an an option, even, so enthusiasts of both configurations can find something they might like. Problem solved.
Then, just when they think they've got their finger on the pulse of the fickle public, they make the Bodyguard .380 and the Shield with manual safeties from the get-go. That's where the heavy demand occurred in the original M&P line, right? They're ahead of the curve, right?
Nope.
Now the public cries out that they
don't want manual safeties.
S&W engineers originally gave M&P owners a nicely soft, non-distracting trigger/sear "reset" ... and suddenly everyone wants the same audible & tactile (and mildly annoying, to some of us) connector-slap reset found in another make of plastic pistol. Back to the drawing board.
Other gun companies seem to be paying attention, as another maker's new LE plastic striker-fired pistol is advertised as having a tactile trigger reset. Yay, right?
Kind of like how Walther produced their P99 variation - the PPQ - with their standard paddle-type mag catch. Not good enough for a lot of the American buyers, though. So, they revised the frame to accommodate what a more commonly accepted mag catch button. Then, of course (predictably), American buyers started to clamor for the "original" PPQ (99) mag catch paddle lever assembly.
Fickle.
Even the magic 8-ball can't predict what the American public will want on any given day.
