They get a bad rap because their aren't over priced.
Example: Black Friday 2012, Dick's Sporting Goods was selling tickets for Troy AR15's for $700ish (normally priced around $1,100-$1,200). You pay for the rifle, then a few weeks later when it comes in you show them your voucher. A week or two later the Colorado theater shooting happened and Dick's cancelled the Troy order and refunded the money. People contacted Troy, asking if they would honor the voucher. Troy said they couldn't as it was less than the cost to make it and they would no longer be selling to Dick's because pricing it that low made them look like a bottom shelf AR manufacturer.
I was in a Ky Walmart last week. They had 6 AR's DPMS for $479.00 ea. Had AR10's for $899.00 ea.
no, they have a bad rap from doing things like using .223 chambers on "5.56" guns and incorrectly staking gas keys and selling out of spec LPKs. There are a couple of really shocking threads on ARF.com about them.....not so much that a lemon made it out the door, but in the one the DPMS CS rep called the customer a liar and then got pwned when the dude provided photo evidence.
Not to mention, a lot of specs come as upgrades (ie CL) and once added in, you could buy a BCM for the same price. I havent kept abreast on their catalog/prices, so this could have changed.
Now before anyone calls me a hater, I owned a DPMS Panther Lite 16 and it worked just fine for my plinking purposes.