Sounds to me like you bemoan the days when guns were made out of forged steel blanks, machined to shape, then polished and blued. Sadly those days are over, my friend. Even most 1911s are made using a lot of cast or MIM steel, or even (gasp!) plastic components nowadays. Glock popularized the use of polymer frames and the industry hasn't looked back since. Cheap stampings, hollow roll pins, and molded plastic parts are the way they're made these days. If you think an M&P 22c looks and feels cheap, go pick up anything made by Walther/Umarex, or worse yet Chiappa. You'll find powdered zinc slides instead of aluminum, and the springs all look like they were robbed out of a Uni-ball pen. We're a long ways away from the good ol' days of the Colt Woodsman.