Consider that I always buy laptops "refurbished". Dell's definition of a refurbished laptop includes "someone else ordered this, and we built it, but then they canceled the order and we never shipped it". The discount you get for buying one of these, relative to a "new" (different how?) one, is substantial.

I actually asked a Korean man the same question maybe 20 years ago, and he told me that he thought quality product meant "well crafted." Maybe because he was americanized in some way by watching American movies, etc.?

Occam's razor would suggest that he said that because that's what "quality" means, and the article was written by a blowhard.