[Si Coe]

I do think its more of an issue of 'Compared to the 410' than absolute quality.

A few things to note:

1) The shock standoffs - yes they are plastic, yes the steel is better, but look at most other models and you'll see they use a screw and a plastic standoff. Its a lot cheaper and simpler than the custom made steel part. If the steel part was never offered, you'd have never known!

2) Ditto the plastic shock bottoms. They don't leak (well none I've seen do at least) unless they are faulty (and you can get faulty alloy ones too) and again are quite normal on many other brands. You've been spoiled by the previous Durango ones.

3) Plastic hexes - these are no worse than you get with pin fit wheels in general. Actually I converted my 210 to pin fit anyway and I'd rather that than alloy hexes.

What Durango have been doing is gradually paring down the bling compared to the original 410, with the view that if performance doesn't suffer but the price is reduced this is a good thing. However it seems that has alienated some of the target market.
I notice that there is a new non-R version of the 410 Short course, precisely as people demanded a full option version. Ditto I reckon the current 210 should be designated an R and a full fat version sold. But that might hurt sales as people will assume you have to buy the pricey version