>>8602546LEGO always cracked. It uses to be they made the part tolerances so tight any significant deviation would result in inevitable cracking of minifigure arms and torsos (particularly if you wanted to swap them around, which you should- it's LEGO).
I'd say overall the change in quality and production hasn't been overtly noticeable from a product durability standpoint - I've got a reasonably large collection of pieces that I use regularly (over 100 gallons worth).
>>8602978From my experience, this is what you'll find mostly. Gold too, to a lesser extent. It seems things may have improved for those colors more recently but no one can really say, it's more likely those new pieces haven't been tested enough is all. I will admit though clip pieces of nearly any production age seem susceptible to cracking sadly. It's really evident with these 2x2 trapezoid shape flags I use as wing tips in a MOC design I've built many of.
