Contrary to your assessment, my experience (and, I presume the experience of a majority of Customers, because otherwise the Company would be on the Better Business Bureau watch list 
ā¦), is the opposite:
My BASIC things do not fail most of the time. Iād say my fully functional BASIC functionality uptime is well above 80% ā¦ probably above 95%. (Where basic functionality = turning on/off devices, sensors (contact and motion) reporting events correctly and timely, lights linked to sensors work, and schedules firing close to on time, including sunset).
The Community has hashed out āgeneral discontentā Topics over and over and over again. The thing is, we are a very small sample size.
I donāt have any analysis tools, but Iām guessing that there are no more than 100 ācompletely dissatisfiedā unique postings (i.e., postings by unique Community Members), out of 3000 total Community Members, and out of tens of thousands of Customers. We have no scientifically valid sample.
This referenced Topic tries to do some analysis of Amazon Reviews (and, of course, the Mobile Apps are also reviewed on Apple Store, Google Play, etc.). I havenāt consulted Consumer Reports (have they reviewed?), but the tech press tends to give positive reviews (4 out of 5).
The Community here may have a negative bias because we: (a) push the product hard, and (b) have the technical knowledge and gadget experience to objectively have high expectations.
Not sure where I going with all this ā¦ I guess Iām saying that SmartThingsās priorities are likely not going to be significantly influenced by the small sample of consumers here in the Community. Like any company, they may focus on internal design goals (as Apple does ā Steve Jobs is famous for discounting customer feedback), or mass-market research.