I’m not aware of any known problems with GE pocket sockets, although there may be one.
There’s a known problem with GE wall switches (nothing to do with SmartThings) where as they age a relatively high percentage, maybe 15%, appear to have difficulty staying connected to the network. Just pulling the airgap doesn’t usually do it – – you have to cut power at the breaker to get them to restart. You can find discussion of this on pretty much every Z wave forum.
The problem generally doesn’t show up until about six months after the switches are out of their warranty. For that reason, they are not technically “defective,” they just don’t endure.
Although obviously it’s extremely annoying, because these switches are so inexpensive relative to other brands, many people will just go ahead and replace the problem switch feeling that they have still saved significant money on the project overall.
I have no idea if the GE/Jasco zigbee switches have the same problem. I’ve never seen it reported, but they’re a much less popular device.
Since the Z wave switches from GE/Jasco do seem to work OK during the warranty, and since it happens regardless of the Z wave controller you have, this isn’t really SmartThings’ issue to fix.
They could make the decision not to feature the GE switches in their own shop and switch to Cooper or Leviton, but they know their audience is mostly very budget-conscious so I don’t think It’s unreasonable that they went with the less expensive brand.