When dealing with contractors you never pay in full until the job is done in full. On large jobs you pay in phases, as the job gets done you pay for that part.
In the main, I agree with you. But, there ARE pockets of businessmen who actually DELIVER on their promise, and even go beyond.. If I were you, I'd LOOK for some.. They're there, even in your town.
I think you're talking about how they usually bring on sub \-contractors though. Then rarely. Most contractors can't maintain a large enough crew to take on big projects and still have enough labor to send starting new ones. There just isn't enough work to have that large of a full time crew and it also becomes hard to keep crew of certain sizes efficient. So sub-contract. It's also worth mentioning that few if any contractor companies are the best at everything. They might be able to do everything, but not have experience in every aspect and material used. You sub-contract a company that specializes in a particular aspect in those cases.
Kinda true. People are reluctant to pay for craftsman quality and in turn that's left us with very few actual craftsman these days. That and the fact building materials have been increasingly moving towards modular and fit and click systems. The McHouse model of building never really results in a quality built home made to last.
Yes. If you have an old house, nothing is "standard". That either increases the cost of a repair or the people have no idea how to deal with the "non-standardness".
Also. A lot of BS bureaucracy goes one with design engineers that don't know their A** from a hole in the ground as opposed to the people who actually build things outside of paper and CAD drawings. Then with some of these asinine code enforcement agents who just make crap up on the fly( in most areas code inspectors can say anything is not approved for any reason. Doesn't have to be part of the code. It is now for you if they say so.). It;'s often obvious they are just making it up so they have to come back and get that pay. In those cases you;'re often left to change something or retro fit on the fly and that usually means some level of mickey mousing just to make it possible.
There is a lot going on that results in our shoddy construction these days and not all of it is due to incompetent contractors or builders. A lot of it is on these "brilliant engineers" and "protective code inspectors" too.
my2cents 